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sotjther:^^ life, 



SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND MILITARY. 



WRITTEN FOR THE LONDON TIMES, 

BY 

WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL, LL. D., 



SPECIAL CORBKSPONDKNT. 




N-EW YORK: 

(STJCOESSOR TO "VT. A. TOATXSEXD & CO.,) 

46 WALKER STEEET. 
1861. 






^, ;^ 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 



Charleston, April 30, 1861 * 
Nothing I could say can be worth one fact which has forced itself 
upon my mind in reference to the sentiments which prevail among 
the gentlemen of this state. I have been among them for several 
days. I have visited their plantations ; I have conversed with them 
freely and fully, and I have enjoyed that frank, courteous, and graceful 
intercourse which constitutes an irresistible charm of their society. 
From all quarters have come to my ears the echoes of the same voice ; 
it may be feigned, but there is no discord in the note, and it sounds in 
wonderful strength and monotony all over the country. Shades of 
George III., of North, of Johnson, of all who contended against the 
great rebellion which tore these colonies from England, can you hear 
the chorus which rings through the state of j\Iarion, Sumter, and 
Pinckney, and not clap your ghostly hands in triumph ? That voice 
says, " If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule 
over us, we should be content." Let there be no misconception en 
this point. That sentiment, varied in a hundred ways, has been re- 
peated to me over and over again. There is a general admission that 
the means to such an end are wanting, and that the desire cannot be 
gratified. But the admiration for monarchical institutions on the 
English model, for privileged classes, and for a landed aristocracy and 
gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. With the pride of 
having achieved their independence is mingled in the South Caro- 
linians' hearts a strange regret at the result and consequences, and 
many are they who " would go back to-morrow if we could." An 
intense affection for the British connection, a love of British habits 
and customs, a respect for British sentiment, law, authority, order, 
civilization, and literature, pre-eminently distinguish the inhabitants of 
this state, who, glorying in their descent from ancient families on the 
three islands, whose fortunes they still folloAv, and with whose members 

* Mr. Russell wrote one letter from Charleston previous to this, but it is occupied 
exclusively with a description of the appearance of Fort Sumter after the siege. 
His " Pictures of Southern Life " properly begin at the date above. 



4 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

they maintain not unfrequently familiar relations, regard with an aver- 
sion of which it is impossible to give an idea to one who has not seen 
its manifestations, the people of New England and the populations 
of the Northern States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure by 
the venom of " Puritanism." Whatever may be the cause, this is the 
fact and the efiect. " The state of South Carolina was," I am told, 
"founded by gentlemen." It was not established by wdtch-burning 
Puritans, by cruel persecuting fanatics, wdio implanted in the North 
th® standard of Torquemada, and breathed into the nostrils of their 
n©wly-born colonies all the ferocity, bloodthirstiness, and rabid intol- 
erance of the Inquisition. It is absolutely astounding to a stranger 
who aims at the preservation of a decent neutrality to mark the vio- 
lence of these opinions. " If that confounded ship had sunk with 

those Pilgrim Fathers on board," says one, " v^e never should 

have been driven to these extremities !" " We could have got on with 
the fanatics if they had been either Christians or gentlemen," says 
another ; " for in the first case they would have acted with common 
charity, and in the second they would have fought when they insulted 
us ; but there are neither Christians nor gentlemen among them !" 
" Any thing on the earth !" exclaims a third, " any form of government, 
any tj^ranny or despotism you will ; but " — and here is an appeal more 
terrible than the adjuration of all the gods — '' nothing on earth shall 
ever induce us to submit to any union with the brutal, bigoted black- 
guards of the New England States, who neither comprehend nor regard 
the feelings of gentlemen ! Man, woman, and child, we'll die first." 
Imagine these and an infinite variety of similar sentiments uttered by 
courtly, well-educated men, who set great store on a nice observance 
of the usages of society, and who are only moved to extreme bitterness 
and anger when they speak of the North, and you will fail to conceive 
the intensity of the dislike of the South Carolinians for the free states. 
There are national antipathies on our side of the Atlantic which are 
tolerably strong, and have been unfortunately pertinacious and long- 
lived. The hatred of the Italian for the Tedesco, of the Greek for the 
Turk, of the Turk for tiae Russ, is warm and fierce enough to satisfy 
the Prince of Darkness, not to speak of a few little pet aversions among 
allied powers and the atoms of composite empires; but they are all mere 
indifference and neutrality of feeling compared to the animosity evinced 
by the " gentry" of South Carolina for the " rabble of the North." 

The contests of Cavalier and Roundhead, of Vendean and Repub- 
lican, even of Orangeman and Croppy, have been elegant joustings, 
regulated by the finest rules of chivalry, compared with those which 
North and South will carry on if their deeds support their words. 



riCTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 5 

" Immortal hate, the study of revenge," will actuate every blow, and 
never in the history of the world, perhaps, will go forth such a dreadful 
vce victis as that which may be heard before the fight has begun. 
There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion so cruel and 
deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees. 
That hatred has been swelling for years till it is the very life-blood of 
the state. It has set South Carolina to work steadily to orii;anize her 
resources for the struggle which she intended to provoke if it did not 
come in the course of time. " Incompatibility of temper" would have 
been sufficient ground for the divorce, and I am satisfied that there has 
been a deep-rooted design, conceived in some men's minds thirty years 
ago, and extended gradually year after year to others, to break away 
from the Union at the very first opportunity. The North is to Soutli 
Carolina a corrupt and evil thing, to which for long years she has been 
bound by burning chains, while monopolists and manufacturers fed on 
her tender limbs. She has been bound in a Maxentian union to the 
object she loathes^ New England is to her the incarnation of moral 
and political wickedness and social corruption. It is the source of 
every thing which South Carolina hates, and of the torrents of free 
thought and taxed manufactures, of Abolitionism and of Filibustering, 
which have flooded the land. Believe a Southern man as he believes 
himself, and you must regard New England and the kindred states as 
the birthplace of impurity of mind among men and of unchastitv in 
women — the home of Free Love, of Fourierism, of Infidelity, of Abol- 
itionism, of false teachings in political economy and in social life ; a 
land saturated with the drippings of rotten philosophy, with the 
poisonous infections of a fanatic press ; without honor or modesty ; 
whose wisdom is paltry cunning, whose valor and manhood hdve been 
swallowed up in a corrupt, howling demagogy, and in the marts of a 
dishonest commerce. It is the merchants of New York who fit out 
ships for the slave-trade, and carry it on in Yankee shij^s. It is the 
capital of the North which supports, and it is Northern men who con- 
coct and execute, the filibustering expeditions which have brought dis- 
credit on the slave-holding states. In the large cities people arc 
corrupted by itinerant and ignorant lecturers — in the towns and in 
the country by an unprincipled press. The populations, indeed, know 
how to read and write, but they don't know how to think, and they 
are the easy victims of the wretched impostors on all the 'ologies and 
'isms who swarm over the region, and subsist by lecturing on subjects 
which the innate vices of mankind induce them to accept with eager- 
ness, while they assume the garb of philosophical abstractions to cover 
their nastiness, in deference to a contemptible and universal hypocrisy. 



O PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

" Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies?" 
Assuredly the 2New England demon, who has been persecuting the 
South until its intolerable cruelty and insolence forced her, in a spasm 
of agony, to rend her chains asunder. The New Englander must have 
something to persecute, and as he has hunted down all his Indians, 
burnt all his wdtches, and persecuted all his opponents to the death, he 
invented Abolitionism as the sole resource left to him for the gratifica- 
tion of his favorite passion. Next to this motive principle is his desire 
to make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly, and shabbily. lie has 
acted on it in all his relations with the South, and has cheated and 
plundered her in all his dealings by villainous tariffs. If one objects 
that the South must have been a party to this, because her boast is 
that her statesmen have ruled the government of the country, you are 
told that the South yielded out of pure good-nature. Now, however, 
she will have free-trade, and will open the coasting trade to foreign 
nations, and shut out from it the hated Yankees, who so long monop- 
olized and made their fortunes by it. Under all#he varied burdens 
and miseries to which she was subjected, the South held fast to her 
sheet-anchor. South Carolina was the mooring- ground in which it 
found the surest hold. The doctrine of State Rights was her salvation, 
and the fiercer the storm raged against her — the more stoutly dema- 
gogy, immigrant preponderance, and the blasts of universal sufi'rage 
bore down on her, threatening to sweep away the vested interests of 
the South in her right to govern the states — the greater was her con- 
fidence and the more resolutely she held on her cable. The North 
attracted " hordes of ignorant Germans and Irish," and the scum of 
Europe, while the South repelled them. The industry, the capital of 
the North increased with enormous rapidity, under the influence of 
cheap labor and manufacturing ingenuity and enterprise, in the villages 
which swelled into towns, and the towns wdiich became cities, under 
the unenvious eye of the South. She, on the contrary, toiled on slowly, 
clearing forests and draining swamps to find new cotton-grounds and 
rice-fields, for the employment of her only industry and for the devel- 
opment of her only capital — " involuntary labor." The tide of immi- 
gration waxed stronger, and by degrees she saw the districts into which 
she claimed the right to introduce that capital closed against her, and 
occupied by free labor. The doctrine of squatter " sovereignty," and 
the force of hostile tariffs, which placed a heavy duty on the very 
articles which the South most required, completed the measure of 
injuries to which she was subjected, and the spirit of discontent found 
vent in fiery debate, in personal insults, and in acrimonious speaking 
and writing, which increased in intensity in proportion as the Aboli- 



PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 7 

tion movement, and the contest between tlie Federal principle and 
State Eights became more vehement. I am desirous of showing in a 
few words, for the information of English readers, how it is that the 
Confederacy which Europe knew simply as a political entity has suc- 
ceeded in dividing itself. The slave states held the doctrine, or say 
they did, that each state was independent, as France or as England, but 
that for certain purposes they chose a common agent to deal with 
foreign nations, and to impose taxes for the purpose of paying the 
expenses of the agency. We, it appears, talked of American citizens 
when there were no such beings at all. There were, indeed, citizens 
of the sovereign state of South Carolina, or of Georgia or Florida, who 
permitted themselves to pass under that designation, but it was merely 
as a matter of personal convenience. It will be difficult for Europeans 
to understand this doctrine, as nothing ilke it has been heard before, 
and no such Confederation of sovereign states has ever existed in any 
country in the world. The Northern men deny that it existed here, 
and claim for the Federal Government powers not compatible with such 
assumptions. They have lived for the Union, they served it, they 
labored for and made money by it. A man as a New York man was 
nothing — as an American citizen he was a great deal. A South Caro- 
linian objected to lose his identity in any description which included 
him and a " Yankee clockmaker " in the same category. The Union 
was against him ; he remembered that he came from a race of English 
gentlemen who had been persecuted by the representatives — for he will 
not call them the ancestors — of the Puritans of New England, and he 
thought that they were animated by the same hostility to himself. He 
was proud of old names, and he felt pleasure in tracing his connection 
with old families in the old country. His plantations were held by old 
charters, or had been in the hands of his fathers for several generations ; 
and he delighted to remember that when the Stuarts were banished 
from their throne and their country, the burgesses of South Carolina 
had solemnly elected the wandering Charles king of their state, and 
had offered him an asylum and a kingdom. The philosophical histo- 
rian may exercise his ingenuity in conjecturing what would have been 
the result if this fugitive had carried his fortunes to Charleston. 

South Carolina contains 34,000 square miles, and a population of 
720,000 inhabitants, of whom 385,000 are black slaves. In the old 
rebellion it was distracted between revolutionary principles and the 
loyalist predilections, and at least one half of the planters were faithful 
to George III., nor did they yield till Washington sent an army to sup- 
port their antagonists, and drove them from the colony. 

In my next letter I shall give a brief account of a visit to some of 



^J 



8 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

the planters, as far as it can be made consistent witli the obligations 
which the rites and rights of hospitalit)^ impose on the guest as well as 
upon the host. These gentlemen are well-bred, courteous, and hospit- 
able. A genuine aristocracy, they have time to cultivate their minds, 
to apply themselves to politics and the guidance of public aftairs. 
They travel and read, love field-sports, racing, shooting, hunting, and 
fishing, are bold horsemen, and good shots. But, after all, their state 
is a modern Sparta — an aristocracy resting on a helotry, and with noth- 
ing else to rest upon. Although they profess (and I believe, indeed, 
sincerely) to hold opinions in opposition to the opening of the slave- 
trade, it is nevertheless true that the clause in the constitution of the 
Confederate States which prohibited the importation of negroes was 
especially and energetically resisted by them, because, as they say, it 
seemed to be an admission that slavery was in itself an evil and a 
wrong. Their whole system rests on slavery, and as such they defend 
it. They entertain very exaggerated ideas of the military strength of 
their little community, although one may do full justice to its military 
spirit. Out of their whole population they cannot reckon more than 
60,000 adult men by any arithmetic, and as there are nearly 30,000 
plantations which must be, according to law, superintended by white 
men, a considerable number of these adults cannot be spared from the 
state for service in the open field. The planters boast that they can 
raise their crops without any inconvenience by the labor of their 
negroes, and they seem confident that the negroes will work without 
superintendence. But the experiment is rather dangerous, and it will 
only be tried in the last extremity. 



Savannah, Ga., 3Iay 1, 1861. 
It is said that " fools build houses for wise men to live in." Be that 
true or not, it is certain that " Uncle Sam" has built strong places for 
his enemies to occupy. To day I have visited Fort Pulaski, which de- 
fends the mouth of the Savannah River and the approaches to the city. 
It was left to take care of itself, and the Georgians quietly stepped into 
it, and have been busied in completing its defences, so that it is now 
capable of stopping a fleet ^^ry eftectually. Pulaski was a Pole who 
fell in the defence of Savannah against the British, and whose memory 
is perpetuated in the name of the fort, which is now under the Con- 
federate flag, and garrisoned by bitter foes of the United States. 
Among our party were Commodore Tatnall, whose name will be 
familiar to English ears in connection with the attack on the Peiho 
Forts, where the gallant American showed the world that " blood was 



PICTURES OF SOX^TIIERN LIFE. 9 

thicker than water;" Brigadier-General Lawton, in command of liic 
forces of Georgia, and a number of naval and military officers, of whom 
many had belonged to the United States regular services. It was 
strange to look at such a man as the commodore, who, for forty-nine 
long years, had served under the stars and stripes, quietly preparing 
to meet his old comrades and friends, if needs be, in the battle-field — 
his allegiance to the country and to the flag renounced, his long service 
flung away, his old ties and connections severed — and all this in defence 
of the sacred right of rebellion on the part of " his state." He is not 
now, nor has he been for years, a slave-owner; all his family and famil- 
iar associations connect him with the North. There are no naval sta- 
tions on the Southern coasts except one at Pensacola, and he knows 
almost no one in the South. He has no fortune whatever, his fleet 
consists of two small river or coasting steamers, without guns, and as 
he said, in talking over the resources of the South, " My bones will be 
bleached many a long year before the Confederate States can hope to 
have a navy." "State Rights'." Tons the question is simply inex- 
plicable or absurd. And yet thousands of Americans sacrifice all for it. 
The river at Savannah is broad as the Thames at Gravesend, and resem- 
bles that stream very much in the color of its waters and the level nature 
of its shores. Rice-fields bound it on either side, as far down as the 
influence of the fresh water extends, and the eye wanders over a flat 
expanse of mud and water, and green oziers and rushes, till its search 
is arrested on the horizon by the unfailing line of forest. In the fields 
here and there, are the whitewashed, square, wooden huts in which the 
slaves dwell, looking very like the beginnings of the camp in the 
Crimea. At one point a small fort, covering a creek, by which gun- 
boats could get up behind Savannah, displayed its " garrison" on the 
walls, and lowere<:l its flag to salute the small blue ensign at the fore, 
which proclaimed the presence of the commodore of the naval forces 
of Georgia on board our steamer- The guns on the parapet were 
mostly field-pieces, mounted on frameworks of wood instead of regular 
carriages. There is no mistake about the spirit of these people. They 
seize upon every spot of vantage ground and prepare it for defence. 
There were very few ships in the river; the yacht Camilla, better 
known as the America, the property of Captain Deasy, and several 
others of those few sailing under British colors, for most of the cotton 
ships are gone. After steaming down the river about twelve miles the 
sea opened out to the sight, and on a long marshy, narrow island near 
the bar, which was marked by the yellow surf. Fort Pulaski threw out 
the Confederate flag to the air of the Georgian 1st of May. The water 
was too shallow to permit the steamer to go up to the jetty, and the 
1* 



10 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

party landed at the wharf in boats. A guard was on duty at the land- 
ing — tall, stout young fellows, in various uniforms, or in rude mufti, in 
which the Garibaldian red shirt, and felt slouched hats predominated. 
They w^ere armed with smooth-bore muskets (date 1851), quite new, 
and their bayonets, barrels, and locks, were bright and clean. The 
officer on duty was dressed in the blue frock-coat, dear to the Lritish 
linesman in days gone by, with brass buttons, emblazoned with the 
arms of the state, a red silk sash, and glazed kepi, and straw-colored 
gauntlets. Several wooden huts, with flower-gardens in front, were oc- 
cupied by the officers of the garrison ; others were used as hospitals, 
and were full of men suffering from measles of a mild type. A few 
minutes' walk led us to the fort, which is an irregular pentagon, with 
the base line or curtain face inlands, and the other faces casemated 
and bearing on the approaches. The curtain, which is simply crenel- 
lated, is covered by a redan surrounded by a deep ditch, inside the 
parapet of which arc granite platforms ready for the reception of guns. 
The parapet is thick, and the scarp and counterscarp are faced with 
solid masonr3^ A drawbridge affords access to the interior of the 
redan, whence the gate of the fort is approached across a deep and 
broad moat, which is crossed by another drawbridge. As the com- 
modore entered the redan, the guns of the fort broke out into a long 
salute, and the band at the gate struck up almost as noisy a welcome. 
Inside, the parade presented a scene of life and animation very unlike 
the silence of the city we had left. Men were busy clearing out the 
casemates, rolling away stores and casks of ammunition and provisions, 
others were at work at the gin and shears, others building sand-bag 
traverses to guard the magazine doors, as though expecting an imme- 
diate attack. Many officers were strolling under the shade of an open 
gallery at the side of the curtain which contained their quarters in the 
lofty bomb-proof casemates. Some of them had seen service in 
Mexican or border warfare; some had travelled over Italian and 
Crimean battle-fields ; others were West Point graduates of the regular 
army, others young planters, clerks, or civilians, who rushed with 
ardor into the first Georgian regiment. The garrison of the fort is 
some 650 men, and fully that number were in and about the work, their 
tents being pitched inside the redan, or on the terreplein of the para- 
pets. The walls are exceedingly solid, and well built of gray brick, 
strong as iron, and upward of six feet in thickness, the casemates and 
bomb-proofs being lofty, airy, and capacious as any I have ever 
seen, though there is not quite depth enough between the walls at the 
salient and the gun-carriages. The work is intended for 128 guns, of 
which about one fourth are mounted on the casemates. They are long 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 11 

32's, with a few 42's and coliimbiads. The armaments will be excced- 
mgly heavy when all the guns are mounted, and they are fast getting 
the ten-inch columbiads into position en barbette. Every thing which 
could be required, except mortars, was in abundance — the platform? 
and gun-carriages are solid and well made, the embrasures of the case- 
mates are admirably constructed, and the ventilation of the bomb-proof 
carefully provided for. There are three furnaces for heatino- redhot 
shot. Nor is discipline neglected, and the officers with whom I went 
round the works were as sharp in tone and manner to their men as 
volunteers well could be, though the latter often are enlisted for only 
three years by the state of Georgia. An excellent lunch was spread 
in the casemated bomb-proof which served as the colonel's quarter, and 
before sunset the party were steaming toward Savannah through a tide- 
Avay full of leaping sturgeon and porpoises, leaving the garrison intent 
on the approach of a large ship, which had her sails aback off the bar, 
and hoisted the stars and stripes, but which turned out to be nothino- 
more formidable than a Liverpool cotton ship. Tt will take some hard 
blows before Georgia is driven to let go her grip of Fort Pulaski. The 
channel is very narrow, and passes close to the guns of the fort. The 
means of completing the armament have been furnished by the store? 
of Norfolk Navy- Yard, where between VOO and 800 guns have fallen 
into the hands of the Confederates ; and, if there are no columbiads 
among them, the Merrimac and other ships, which have been raised, as 
we hear, with guns uninjured, will yield up their Dahlgrens to turn 
their muzzles against their old masters. 

Mat/ 2. — May Day was so well kept yesterday that the exhausted 
editors cannot " bring out"' their papers, and consequently there is no 
news ; but there is, nevertheless, much to be said concerning " our 
President's" message, and there is a suddenness of admiration for pacfic 
tendencies which can with difficulty be accounted for, unless the news 
from the North these last few days has something to do with it. Not 
a word now about an instant march on Washington ! no more threats 
to seize Faneuil Hall ! The Georgians are by no means so keen as the 
CaroHnians on their border — nay, they are not so belligerent to-day as 
they were a week ago. Mr. Jefferson Davis's message is praised for its 
"moderation" and for other qualities which were by no means in such 
favor while the Sumter fever was at its height. Men look grave and 
talk about the interference of England and France, which " cannot al- 
low this thing to go on." But the change which has come over them 
is unmistakable, and the best men begin to look grave. As for me, I 
must prepare to open my lines of retreat — my communications are in 
danger. 



12 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

MONTGOSrERY, CAPITAL OF THE COXFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, 

May 8, 1861. 
In my last letter I gave an account of such matters as passed under 
my notice on my way to this city, which I reached, as you are aware, 
on the night of Saturday, May 4. I am on difficult ground, the land 
is on fire, the earth is shaking with the tramp of armed men, and the 
very air is hot with passion. My communications are cut off, or are at 
best accidental, and in order to reopen them I must get further away 
from them, paradoxical as the statement may appear to be. It is im- 
possible to know what is going on in the North, and it is almost the 
same to learn what is doing in the South out of eye-shot ; it is useless 
to inquire what news is sent to you to England. Events hurry on with 
tremendous rapidity, and even the lightning lags behind them. The 
people of the South at last are aware that the "Yankees" are preparing 
to support the government of the United States, and that the Secession 
can only be maintained by victory in the field. There has been a change 
in their war policy. They now aver that " they only w^ant to be left 
alone," and they declare that they do not intend to take Washington, 
and that it was merely as a feint they spoke about it. The fact i^*, there 
are even in the compact and united South men of moderate and men 
of extreme views, and the general tone of the whole is regulated by the 
preponderance of one or other at the moment. I have no doubt on my 
mind that the government here intended to attack and occupy Wash- 
ington — not the least that they had it much at heart to reduce Fort 
Pickens as soon as possible. Now some of their friends say that it will 
be a mere matter of convenience whether they attack Washington or 
not, and that, as for Fort Pickens, they will certainly let it alone, at all 
events for the present, inasmuch as the menacing attitude of General 
Bragg obliges the enemy to keep a squadron of their best ships there 
and to retain a force of regulars they can ill spare in a position where 
they must soon lose enormously from diseases incidental to the climate. 
They have discovered, too, that the position is of little value so long as 
the United States hold Tortugas and Key West. But the Confederates 
are preparing for the- conflict, and when they have organized their 
forces, they will make, I am satisfied, a very resolute advance all along 
the line. They are at present strong enough, they suppose, in their 
domestic resources, and in the difficulties presented to a hostile force 
by the nature of the country, to bid defiance to invasion, or, at all events, 
to inflict a very severe chastisement on the invaders, and their excited 
manner of speech so acts upon their minds thnt they be2;in to think 
they can defy, not merely the United States, but the world. Thus 
it is that they declare they never can be conquered, that they will 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 13 

die, to a man, woman, and child, first, and that if 50,000, or any num- 
ber of thousands of black republicans get 100 miles into Virginia, not 
one man of them shall ever get out alive. Behind all this talk, how- 
ever, there is immense energy, great resolution, and fixed principles of 
action. Their strategy consists in keeping quiet till they have their 
troops well in hand, in such numbers and discipline as shall give them 
fair grounds for expecting success in any campaign with the United 
States troops. They are preparing with vigor to render the descent of 
the Mississippi impossible, by 'erecting batteries on the commanding 
levees, or embankments which hem in its waters for upwards of 800 
miles of bank, and they are occupying, as far as they can, all the 
strategical points of attack or defence within their borders. When 
every thing is ready, it is not improbable that Mr. Jefferson Davis will 
take command of the army, for he is reported to have a high ambition 
to acquire reputation as a general, and in virtue of his office he is gen- 
eralissimo of the armies of the Confederate States. It will be remarked 
that this plan rests on the assumption that the United States cannot or 
will not wage an offensive Avar, or obtain any success in their attempts 
to recover the forts and other property of the Federal government. 
They firmly believe the war will not last a year, and that 1862 will be- 
hold a victorious, compact, slaveholding confederate power of fifteen 
states under a strong government, prepared to hold its own against the 
world, or that portion of it which may attack it. I now but repeat the 
sentiments and expectations of those around me. They believe in the 
irresistible power of cotton, in the natural alliance between manufactur- 
ing England and France and the cotton-producing slave states, in the 
force of their simple tariff, and in the interests which arise out of a sys- 
tem of free trade, which, however, by a rigorous legislation, they will 
interdict to their neighbors in the free states, and only open for the 
benefit of their foreign customers. Commercially, and politically, and 
militarily, they have made up their minds, and never was there such 
confidence exhibited by any people in the future as they have, or pre- 
tend to have, in their destiny. Listen to their programme. 

It is intended to buy up all the cotton crop which can be brought 
into the market at an average price, and to give bonds of the Confed- 
erate States for the amount, these bonds being, as we know, secured by 
the export duty on cotton. The government, with this cotton crop in 
its own hands, wdll use it as a formidable machine of war, for cotton 
can do any thing, from the establishment of an empire to the securing 
of a shirt button. It is at once king and subject, master and servant, 
captain and soldier, artilleryman and gun. Not one bale of cotton will 
be permitted to enter the Northern States. It will be made an offence 



14 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

punishable with tremendous penalties, among which confiscation of 
property, enormous fines, and even the penalty of death, are enumer- 
ated, to send cotton into the free states. Thus Lowell and its kindred 
factories will be reduced to ruin, it is said, and the North to the direst 
distress. If Manchester can get cotton and Lowell cannot, there are 
good times coming for the mill-owners. 

The planters have agreed among themselves to hold over one half of 
their cotton crop for their own purposes and for the culture of thdr 
fields, and to sell the other to the government. For each bale of cotton, 
as I hear, a bond will be issued on the fair average price of cotton in the 
market, and this bond must be taken at par as a circulating medium 
within the limits of the slave states. This forced circulation will be se- 
cured by the act of the legislature. The bonds will bear interest at ten 
per cent., and they will be issued on the faith and security of the pro- 
ceeds of the duty of one eighth of a cent on every pound of cotton ex- 
ported. All vessels loading with cotton will be obliged to enter into 
bonds or give security that they will not carry their cargoes to Nor- 
thern ports, or let it reach Northern markets to their knowledge. The 
government will sell the cotton for cash to foreign buyers, and will 
thus raise funds amply suflficient, they contend, for all pui-poses. I 
make these bare statements, and I leave to political economists the 
discussion of the question which may and will arise out of the acts of 
the Confederate States. The Southerners argue that by breaking 
from their unnatural alliance with the North they will save upward of 
$47,000,000, or nearly £10,000,000 sterling annually. The estimated 
value of the annual cotton crop is $200,000,000. On this the North 
formerly made at least $10,000,000, by advances, interest and ex- 
changes, which in all came to fully five per cent, on the whole of the 
crop. Again, the tarifi"to raise revenue sufficient for the maintenance 
of the government of the Southern Confederacy is far less than that 
which is required by the government of the United States. The Con- 
federate States propose to have a tarifi* which will be about 121 per 
cent, on imports, which will yield $25,000,000. The Northern tariff 
is 80 per cent, and as the South took from the North $70,000,000 
worth of manufactured goods and produce, they contribute, they assert, 
to the maintenance of the North to the extent of the difference be- 
tween the tax sufficient for the support of their government and that 
which is required for the support of the Federal government. Now 
they will save the difference between 30 per cent, and 12i per cent. 
(17i per ct.), which amounts to $37,000,000, which, added to the 
saving on commissions, exchanges, advances, (fee, makes up the good 
round sum which I have put down higher up. The Southerners are 



PICTURES OF SOUTHLEBN LIFE. 15 

firmly convinced that they have "kept the North going" by the prices 
they have paid for the protected articles of their manufacture, and they 
hold out to Sheffield, to Manchester, to Leeds, to Wolverhampton, to 
Dudley, to Paris, to Lyons, to Bordeaux, to all the centres of English 
manufacturing life, as of French taste and luxury, the tempting baits 
of new and eager and hungry markets. If their facts and statistics are 
accurate, there can be no doubt of the justice of their deductions on 
many points ; but they can scarcely be correct in assuming that they 
will bring the United States to destruction by cutting ofl" from Lowell 
the 600,000 bales of cotton which she usually consumes. One great 
fact, however, is unquestionable — the government has in its hands the 
souls, the wealth, and the hearts of the people. They will give any- 
thing — money, labor, life itself — to carry out their theories. "Sir," 
said an ex-governor of this state to me to-day, " sooner than submit 
to the North, we will all become subject to Great Britain again." The 
same gentleman is one of many who have given to the government a 
large portion of their cotton crop every year as a free-will offering. In 
this instance his gift is one of 500 bales of cotton, or £5,000 per an- 
num, and the papers teem with accounts of similar ''patriotism" and 
devotion. The ladies are all making sand-bags, cartridges, and uni- 
forms, and, if possible, they are more fierce than the men. The time 
for mediation is past, if it ever were at hand or present at all ; and it 
is scarcely possible now to prevent the processes of phlebotomization 
which are supposed to secure peace and repose. 

There was no intelligence of much interest on Sunday, but there is 
a general belief that Arkansas and Missouri will send in their adhesion 
to the Confederacy this week, and the Commissioners from Virginia 
are hourly expected. The attitude of that state, however, gives rise 
to apprehensions lest there may be a division of her strength ; and any 
aggression on her territories by the Federal government, such as that 
contemplated in taking possession of Alexandria, would be hailed by 
the Montgomery government with sincere joy, as it would, they think, 
move the state to more rapid action and decision. 

Montgomery is on an undulating plain, and covers ground large 
enough for a city of 200,000 inhabitants, but its population is only 
12,000. Indeed, the politicians here appear to dislike large cities, but 
the city designers certainly prepare to take them if they come. There 
is a large negro population, and a considerable number of a color which 
forces me to doubt the evidence of my senses rather than the state- 
ments made to me by some of my friends, that the planters afi'eet the 
character of parent in their moral relations merely with the negro race. 
A waiter at the hotel — a tall, handsome young fellow, with the least 



16 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

tinge of color in liis clieek, not as dark as the majority of Spaniards or 
Italians— astonished me in my ignorance to-day when, in reply to a 
question asked by one of our party, in consequence of a discussion on 
the point, he informed me he " was a slave." The man, as he said so, 
looked confused ; his manner altered. He had been talking familiarly 
to us, but the moment he replied, "I am a slave, sir," his loquacity 
disappeared, and he walked hurriedly and in silence out of the room. 
The River Alabama, on which the city rests, is a wide, deep stream, 
now a quarter of a mile in breadth, with a current of four miles an 
hour. It is navigable to Mobile, upward of 400 miles, and steamers 
ascend its waters for many miles beyond this into the interior. The 
country around is well wooded, and is richly cultivated in broad fields 
of cotton and Indian corn, but the neighborhood is not healthy, and 
deadly fevers are said to prevail at certain seasons of the year. There 
is not much animation in the streets, except when " there is a difficulty 
among the citizens," or in the eternal noise of the hotel steps and bars. 
I w^as told this morning by the hotel keeper that I was probably the 
only person in the house, or about it, who had not loaded revolvers in 
his pockets, and one is aware occasionally of an unnatural rigidity 
scarcely attributable to the osseous structure in the persons of those 
who pass one in the crowded passages. 

Monday, May 6. — To-day I visited the capitol, where the Provisional 
Congress is sitting. On leaving the hotel, which is like a small Wil- 
lard's, so far as the crowd in the hall is concerned, my attention was 
attracted to a group of people to whom a man was holding forth in 
energetic sentences. The day was hot, but I pushed near to the spot, 
for I like to hear a stump-speech, or to pick up a stray morsel of divin- 
ity in the via sacra of strange cities, and it appeared as though the 
speaker was delivering an oration or a sermon. The crowd was small. 
Three or four idle men in rough, homespun, makeshift uniforms, leaned 
ao-ainst the iron rails enclosing a small pond of foul, green-looking wa- 
ter, surrounded by brick-work, wdiich decorates the space in front of 
the Exchange hotel. The speaker stood on an empty deal packing- 
case. A man in a cart was listening wdtli a lacklustre eye to the ad- 
dress. Some three or four others, in a sort of vehicle which might 
either be a hearse or a piano van, had also drawn up for the benefit of 
the address. Five or six other men, in long black coats and high hats, 
some whittling sticks, and chewing tobacco, and discharging streams 
of discolored saliva, completed the group. " N-i-n-e h'hun' nerd and 
fifty dollars ? Only nine li-hun nerd and fifty dollars off'ered for him !" 
exclaimed the man, in the tone of injured dignity, remonstrance and 
surprise, which can be insinuated by all true auctioneers into the dryest 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 17 

numerical statements. " Will 7io one make any advance on nine hun- 
dred and fifty dollars ?" A man near me opened his mouth, spat, and 
said, " twenty-five." " Only nine hundred and seventy-five dollars 
oftered for him. Why, at's radaklous — only nine hundred and seven- 
ty-five dollars ! Will no one," &c. Beside the orator auctioneer 
stood a stout young man of five-and-twenty years of age, with a bun- 
dle in his hand. He was a muscular fellow, broad-shouldered, narrow 
flanked, but rather small in stature ; he had on a broad, greasy, old 
wide-awake, a blue jacket, a coarse cotton shirt, loose and rather ragged 
trowsers, and broken shoes. The expression of his face was heavy and 
sad, but it was by no means disagreeable, in spite of his thick lips, 
broad nostrils, and high cheek-bones. On his head was wool instead 
of hair. I am neither sentimentalist nor black republican, nor negro- 
worshipper, but I confess the sight caused a strange thrill through my 
heart. I tried in vain to make myself familiar with the fact that I 
could, for the sum of $975, become as absolutely the owner of that 
mass of blood, bones, sinew, flesh, and brains, as of the horse which 
stood by my side. There was no sophistry which could persuade me 
the man was not a man — he was, indeed, by no means my brother, but 
assuredly he was a fellow-creature. I have seen slave markets in the 
East, but somehow or other the Orientalism of the scene cast a color- 
ing over the nature of the sales there which deprived them of the dis- 
agreeable harshness and matter-of-fact character of the transaction be- 
fore me. For Turk, or Smyrniote, or Egyptian to buy and sell slaves 
seemed rather suited to the eternal fitness of things than otherwise. 
The turbaned, shawled, loose-trowsered, pipe-smoking merchants speak- 
ing an unknown tongue looked as if they were engaged in a legitimate 
business. One knew that their slaves would not be condemned to any 
very hard labor, and that they would be in some sort the inmates of 
the family, and members of it. Here it grated on my ear to listen to 
the familiar tones of the English tongue as the medium by which the 
transfer was efiected, and it was painful to see decent-looking men in 
European garb engaged in the work before me. Perchance these im- 
pressions may wear off", for I meet many English people who are the 
most strenuous advocates of the slave system, although it is true that 
their perceptions may be quickened to recognize its beauties by their 
participation in the profits. The negro was sold to one of the bystand- 
ers, and walked oft' with his bundle, God knows where. " Niggers is 
cheap," was the only remark of the bystanders. I continued my walk 
up a long, wide, straight street, or more properly, an unpaved sandy 
road, lined with wooden houses on each side, and with trees by the 
side of the footpath. The lower of the two stories is generally used 



18 PICTUBES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

as a shop, mostly of the miscellaneous store kind, in which all sorts of 
articles are to be had if there is any money to pay for them ; and, in 
the present case, if any faith is to be attached to the conspicuous no- 
tices in the windows, credit is of no credit, and the only thing that 
can he accepted in exchange for the goods is " cash." At the end of 
this long street, on a moderate eminence, stands a whitewashed or 
painted edifice, with a gaunt, lean portico, supported on lofty lanky 
pillars, and surmounted by a subdued and dejected-looking little 
cupola. Passing an unkempt lawn, through a very shabby little gate- 
way in a brick frame, and we ascend a flight of steps into a hall, from 
which a double staircase conducts us to the vestibule of the chamber. 
Any thing much more offensive to the eye cannot well be imagined 
than the floor and stairs. They are stained deeply by tobacco juice, 
w^hich has left its marks on the white stone steps and on the base of 
the pillars outside. In the hall which we have entered there are two 
tables, covered with hams, oranges, bread and fruits, for the refresh- 
ment of members and visitors, over which two sable goddesses, in 
portentous crinoline, preside. The door of the chamber is open, and 
we are introduced into a lofty, well-lighted and commodious aj^artment, 
in which the Congress of the Confederate States holds its deliberations. 
A gallery runs half round the room, and is half filled with visitors — 
country cousins, and farmers of cotton and maize, and, haply, seekers 
of places great or small. A light and low semicircular screen sepa- 
rates the body of the house, where the members sit, from the space 
under the gallery, which is appropriated to ladies and visitors. The 
clerk sits at a desk above this table, and on a platform behind him are 
the desk and chair of the presiding ofiicer or Speaker of the Congress. 
Over his head hangs the unfailing portrait of Washington, and a small 
engraving, in a black frame, of a gentleman unknown to me. Seated 
in the midst of them, at a senator's desk, I was permitted to " assist," 
in the French sense, at the deliberations of the Congress. Mr. Howell 
Cobb took the chair, and a white-headed clergyman was called upon 
to say prayers, which he did, upstanding, with outstretched hands and 
closed eyes, by the side of the speaker. The prayer was long and 
sulphureous. One more pregnant with gunpowder I never heard, nor 
could auo;ht like it have been heard since. 

" Pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, 
Was beat Avith list instead of stick." 

The reverend gentleman prayed that the Almighty might be pleased 
to infiict on the arms of the United States such a defeat that it might 
be the example of signal punishment forever — that this president 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 19 

might be blessed, and the other president might be the other thing — 
that the gallant, devoted young soldiers who were fighting for their 
country might not suffer from exposure to the weather or from the 
bullets of their enemies ; and that the base mercenaries who were 
fighting on the other side might come to sure and swift destruction, 
and so on. 

Are right and wrong mere geographical expressions ? The prayer 
was over at last, and the house proceeded to business. Although each 
state has several delegates In Congress, it is only entitled to one vote 
on a strict division. In this way some curious decisions may be ar- 
rived at, as the smallest state is equal to the largest, and a majority of 
the Florida representatives may neutralize a vote of all the Georgia 
representatives. For example, Georgia has ten delegates ; Florida 
has only three. The vote of Florida, however, is determined by the 
action of any two of its three representatives, and these two may, on a 
division, throw the one state vote into the scale against that of Georgia, 
for which ten members are agreed. The Congress transacts all its busi- 
ness in secret session, and finds it a very agreeable and commendable way 
of doing it. Thus, to-day, for example, after the presentation of a 
few unimportant motions and papers, the speaker rapped his desk, and 
announced that the house would go into secret session, and that all who 
were not members should leave. 

As I was returning to the hotel there was another small crowd at 
the fountain. Another auctioneer, a fat, flabby, perspiring, puffy man, 
was trying to sell a negro girl, who stood on the deal box beside him. 
She was dressed pretty much like a London servant-girl of the lower 
order out of place, except that her shoes were mere shreds of leather 
patches, and her bonnet would have scarce passed muster in the New 
Cut. She, too, had a little bundle in her hand, and looked out at the 
buyers from a pair of large ^ad eyes. " Niggers were cheap ;" still 
here was this young woman going for an upset price of $6 1 0, but no 
one would bid, and the auctioneer, after vain attempts to raise the 
price and excite competition, said, " Not sold to-day, Sally ; you may 
get down." 

Tuesday, May V. — The newspapers contain the text of the declaration 
of a state of war on the part of President Davis, and of the issue of 
letters of marque and reprisal, &c. But it may be asked, who will take 
these letters of marque ? Where is the government of Montgomery to 
find ships ? The answer is to be found in the fact that already numer- 
ous applications have been received from the shipowners of New Eng- 
land, from the whalers of New Bedford, and from others in the Northern 
States, for these very letters of marque, accompanied by the highest 



20 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 



securities and guaranties ! This statement I make on fhe very highest 
authority". I leave it to you to deal with the facts. 

To-day I proceeded to the Montgomery Downing street and White- 
hall, to present myself to the members of the cabinet, and to be intro- 
duced to the President of the Confederate States of America. There 
is no sentry at the doors, and access is free to all, but there are notices 
on the doors warning visitors that they can only be received during 
certain hours. The President was engaged with some gentlemen when 
I was presented to him, but he received me with much kindliness of 
manner, and, when they had left, entered into conversation with me for 
some time on general matters. Mr. Davis is a man of slight, sinewy 
figure, rather over the middle height, and of erect, soldierlike bearing. 
He is about fifty-five years of age ; his features are regular and well- 
defined, but the face is thin and marked on cheek and brow with many 
wrinkles, and is rather careworn and haggard. One eye is apparently 
blind, the other is dark, piercing, and intelligent. He was dressed very 
plainly, in a light-gray summer suit. In the course of conversation, he 
gave an order for the Secretary of War to furnish me with a letter as a 
kind of passport, in case of my falling in with the soldiers of any mili- 
tary posts who might be indisposed to let me pass freely, merely ob- 
serving that I had been enough within the lines of camps to know what 
was my duty on such occasions. I subsequently was presented to Mr. 
Walker, the Secretary of War, who promised to furnish me with the 
needful documents before I left Montgomery. In his room were General 
Beauregard and several officers, engaged over plans and maps, apparently 
in a little council of war, which was, perhaps, not without reference to 
the intelligence that the United States troops were marching on Norfolk 
Navy- Yard, and had actually occupied Alexandria. On leaving the Sec- 
retary, I proceeded to the room of the Attorney-General, Mr. Benjamin, 
a very intelligent and able man, whom I found busied in preparations 
connected with the issue of letters of marque.. Every thing in the offices 
looked like earnest work and business. 

On my way back from the State Department, I saw a very fine com- 
pany of infimtry and three field-pieces, with about one hundred and 
twenty artillerymen, on their march to the railway station for Virginia. 
The men were all well equipped, but there were no ammunition wagons 
for the guns, and the transport consisted solely of a few country carts, 
drawn by poor horses, out of condition. There is no lack of muscle 
and will among the men. The troops Avhich I see here are quite fit to 
march and fight as far as their personnel is concerned, and there is no 
people in the world so crazy with military madness. The very children 
in the streets ape the air of soldiers, carr/^ little flags, and wear cock- 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 21 

ades as they strut in the highways, and mothers and fathers feed the 
fever by dressing them up as Zouaves or Chasseurs. 

Mrs. Davis had a small levee to-day in right of her position as wife 
of the President. Several ladies there probably looked forward to the 
time when their states miofht secede from the new Confederation, and 
afford them the pleasure of holding a reception. Why not Presidents 
of the State of Georgia, or Alabama ? Why not King of South Caro- 
lina, or Emperor of Florida ? Soldiers of fortune, make your game ! 
Gentlemen politicians, the ball is rolling. There is, to be sure, a storm 
gathering at the North, but it cannot hurt you, and already there are 
condottieri from all parts of the world flocking to your aid, who will eat 
your Southern beeves the last of all. 

One word more as to a fleet. The English owners of several large 
steamers are already in correspondence with government here for the 
purchase of their vessels. The intelligence which had reached the 
government that their commissioners have gone on to Paris is regarded 
as unfavorable to their claims, and as a proof that as yet England is not 
disposed to recognize them. It is amusing to hear the tone used on 
both sides toward Great Britain. Both are most anxious for her coun- 
tenance and support, although the North blusters rather more about its 
independence than the South, which professes a warm regard for the 
mother country. " But," say the North, " if Great Britain recognizes 
the South, we shall certainly look on it as a declaration of war." 
" And," say the South, "if Great Britain does not recognize our priva- 
teers' flag, we shall regard it as proof of hostility and of alliance with 
the enemy." The government at Washington seeks to obtain promises 
from Lord Lyons that our government will not recognize the Southern 
Confederacy, but at the same time refuses any guaranties in reference 
to the rights of neutrals. The blockade of the Southern ports would 
not occasion us any great inconvenience at present, because the cotton- 
loading season is over ; but if it be enforced in October, there is a pros- 
pect of very serious and embarrassing questions arising in reference to 
the rights of neutrals, treaty obligations with the United States govern- 
ment, the trade and commerce of England, and the law of blockade in 
reference to the distinctions to be drawn between measures of war and 
means of annoyance. 

As I write, the guns in front of the State Department are firing a 
salute, and each report marks a state of the Confederacy. They are 
now ten, as Arkansas and Tennessee are now out of the Union. 



22 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

Montgomery, Monday, May 6, 1861. 
Althougli I liave written two letters since my arrival at Charleston, 
I have not been able to give an account of many things which have 
come under my notice, and which appeared to be noteworthy ; and 
now that I am fairly on my travels once more, it seems only too proba- 
ble that I shall be obliged to pass them over altogether. The rolling 
fire of the revolution is fast sweeping over the prairie, and one must 
fly before it or burn. I am obliged to see all that can be seen of the 
South at once, and then, armed with such safeguards as I can procure, 
to make an effort to recover my communications. Bridges broken, 
rails torn up, telegraphs pulled down — I am quite in the air, and air 
charged with powder and fire. One of the most extraordinary books 
in the world could be made out of the cuttings and parings of the 
newspapers which have been published within the last few days. The 
judgments, statements, asseverations of the press, everywhere neces- 
sarily hasty, ill-sifted and off-hand, do not aspire to even an ephemeral 
existence here. They are of use if they serve the purpose of the mo- 
ment, and of the little boys who commence their childhood in deceit, 
and continue to adolescence in iniquity, by giving vocal utterance to 
the " sensation" headings of the journals they retail so sharply and so 
curtly. Talk of the superstition of the middle ages ; or of the credu- 
lity of the more advanced periods of rural life ; laugh at the Holy Coat 
of Treves, or groan over the Lady of Salette ; deplore the faith in 
winking pictures, or in a communique of the Moniteur ; moralize on 
the superstition which discovers more in the liquefaction of the ichor 
of St. Gennaro than a chemical trick, but if you desire to understand 
how far faith can see and trust among the people who consider them- 
selves the most civilized and intelligent in the world, you will study 
the American journals, and read the telegrams which appear in them. 
One day the Seventh New York regiment is destroyed for the edifica- 
tion of the South, and is cut up into such small pieces that none of it 
is ever seen afterward. The next day it marches into Washington or 
Annapolis all the better for the process. Another, in order to en- 
courage the North, it is said that hecatombs of dead were carried out 
of Fort Moultrie, packed up, for easy travelling, in boxes. Again, to 
irritate both, it is credibly stated that Lord Lyons is going to interfere, 
or that an Anglo-French fleet is coming to watch the ports, and so 
on, through a wild play of fancy, inexact in line as though the batteries 
were charged with the aurora horealls or summer lightning, instead of 
the respectable, steady, manageable offspring of acid and metal, to 
whose staid deportment we are accustomed at a moderate price for 
entrance. As is usual in such periods, the contending parties accuse 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIEE. 23 

each other of inveterate falsehood, perfidy, oppression and local tyranny 
and persecution. "Madness rules the hour." The exultation of the 
South when the flag of the United States was lowered at Sumter has 
been answered by a shout of indignation and battle-cry from the North, 
and the excitement at Charleston has produced a reflex action there, 
the energy of which cannot be described. The apathy which struck 
me at New York, when I landed, has been succeeded by violent popular 
enthusiasm, before which all Laodicean policy has melted into fervent 
activity. The truth must be that the New York population did not 
believe in the strength and unanimity of the South, and that they 
thought the Union safe, or did not care about it. I can put down the 
names of gentlemen who expressed the strongest opinions that the 
government of the United States had no power to coerce the South, 
and who have since put down their names and their money to support 
the government in the attempt to recover the forts which have been 
taken. As to the change of opinion in other quarters, which has been 
effected so rapidly and miraculously that it has the ludicrous air of a 
vulgar juggler's trick at a fair, the public regard it so little that it would 
be unbecoming to waste a word about it. 

I expressed a belief in a letter, written a few days after my arrival, 
that the South would never go back into the Union. The North thinks 
that it can coerce the South, and I am not prepared to say they are 
right or wrong ; but I am convinced that the South can only be forced 
back by such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the 
feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can be made by the 
North, but success must destroy the Union as it has been constituted 
in times past. A strong government must be the logical consequence 
of victory, and the triumph of the South will be attended by a similar 
result, for which, indeed, many Southerners are very well disposed. 
To the people of the Confederate States there would be no terror in 
such an issue, for it appears to me they are pining for a strong govern- 
ment exceedingly. The North must accept it whether they like it or 
not. Neither party, if such a term can be applied to the rest of the 
United States, and to those states which disclaim the authority of the 
Federal government, was prepared for the aggressive or resisting power 
' of the other. Already the Confederate States perceive that they can- 
not carry all before them with a rush, while the North have learnt that 
they must put forth all their strength to make good a tithe of their 
lately uttered threats. But the Montgomery government are now, 
they say, anxious to gain time, and to prepare a regular army. The 
North, distracted by apprehensions of vast disturbance in its compli- 
cated relations, is clamoring for mstant action and speedy consumma- 



24 PICTURES OF SOUTIIEKN LIFE. 

tion. The counsels of moderate men, as they were called, have been 
utterly overruled. 

I am now, however, dealing with South Carolina, which has been 
the fons et origo of the secession doctrines and their development into 
the full life of the Confederate States. The whole foundation on 
which South Carolina rests is cotton and a certain amount of rice; or 
rather she bases her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in 
Europe for those products of her soil, believing and asserting, as she 
does, that England and France cannot and will not do without them. 
Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter encumbering 
the ground. Rice, without demand for it, is unsalable grain in store 
and on the field. Cotton at ten cents a pound is boundless prosperity, 
empire and superiority, and rice or grain need no longer be rejrarded. 
In the matter of slave labor, South Carolina argues pretty much iu this 
way : England and France require our products. In order to meet 
their wants, we must cultivate our soil. There is only one way of 
doing so. The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of 
the year ; he cannot work in the manner required by the crops. He 
must, therefore, employ a race suited to the labor, and that is a race 
which will only work when it is obliged to do so. That race was im- 
ported from Africa, under the sanction of the law, by our ancestors, 
when we were a British colony, and it has been fostered by us, so that 
its increase here has been as great as that of the most flourishing people 
in the world. In other places, where its labor was not productive or 
imperatively essential, that race has been made free, sometimes with 
disastrous consequences to itself and to industry. But we will not 
make it free. We cannot do so. We hold that slavery is essential to 
our existence as producers of what Europe requires, nay more, we 
maintain it is in the abstract right in principle ; and some of us go so 
far as to maintain that the only proper form of society, according to 
the law of God and the exigencies of man, is that which has slavery 
as its basis. As to the slave, he is happier far in his state of servitude, 
more civilized and religious, than he is or could be if free or in his 
native Africa. 

I have already endeavored to describe the aspect of Charleston, and 
I will now make a few observations on matters which struck me during 
my visit to one or two of the planters of the many who were kind 
enough to give me invitations to their residences in the state. Early 
one morning I started in a steamer to visit a plantation in the Pedee 
and Maccamaw district, in the island coast of the state, north of Charles- 
ton. Passing Sumter, on wdiich men are busily engaged, under the 
Confederate flag, in making good damages and mounting guns, we put 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 25 

out a few miles to sea, and with the low sandy shore, dotted with sol- 
diers, and guard-houses, and clumps of trees, on our left, in a few 
hours pass the Santee River, and enter an estuary into which the 
Pedee and Maccamaw Rivers run a few miles further to the north- 
west. The steamer ran alongside a jetty and pier, which was crowded 
by men in uniform waiting for the news and for supplies of creature 
comforts. Ladies were cantering along the fine hard beach, and some 
gigs and tax-carts fully laden rolled along very much as one sees 
them at Scarborough. The soldiers on the pier were al Igentlemen of 
the county. Some, dressed in gray tunics and yellow facings, in high 
felt hats and plumes and jack-boots, would have done no discredit in 
face, figure and bearing to the gayest cavaliers who ever thundered at 
the heels of Prince Rupert. Their horses, full of C?rolinian fire and 
mettle, stood picketed under the trees along the margin of the beach. 
Among these men, who had been doing the duty of common troopers 
in patrolling the sea-coast, were gentlemen possessed of large estates 
and princely fortunes ; and one who stood among them was pointed 
out to me as captain of a company, for whose uses his liberality pro- 
vided unbounded daily libations of champagne, and the best luxuricL. 
which French ingenuity can safely imprison in those well-known 
caskets with which Crimean warriors were not unacquainted at the 
close of the campaign. They were eager for news, which was shouted 
out to them by their friends in the steamer, and one was struck by the 
intimate personal cordiality and familiar acquaintance which existed 
among them. Three heavy guns mounted in an earthwork defended 
by palisades, covered the beach and the landing-place, and the garri- 
son was to have been reinforced by a regiment from Charleston, 
which, however, had not got in readiness to go up on our steamer, 
owing to some little difficulties between the volunteers, their oflacers, 
and the quartermaster-general's department. 

As the Nina approaches the tumble-down wharf, two or three citi- 
zens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few 
country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from the same 
shelter to receive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who 
have been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which 
represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding 
positions for the better observation of our proceedings. There is an 
air of quaint simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about Georgetown, 
refreshingly antagonistic to the bustle and tumult of most American 
cities. While waiting for our vehicl ewe enjoyed the hospitality of 
one of our friends, who took us into an old-fashioned angular wooden 
mansion, more than a century old, still sound in every timber, and 



26 nCTURES OF SOUTHEKN LIFE. 

testifying, in its quaint wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door 
and window, to the durability of its cypress timbers and the preserv- 
ative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was the crack 
house of the old settlement, and the residence of the founder of the 
female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it his 
halting place when passing to and fro between Charleston and his plan- 
tation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her 
grandchild. Rose-trees and iiov,^cring shrubs clustered before the porch 
and filled the garden in front, :ind the establishment gave one a good 
idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

At lena^th we were ready for our journey, and, mounted in two light 
covered vehicles, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, 
led us to a cut deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only 
broken by the cry of a woodpecker, the boom of a crane, or the shai-p 
challenge of the jay. For miles we passed through the shades of this 
forest, meeting only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom 
on little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome 
as we passed. Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored stream, called Black 
River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat large enough to accom- 
modate vehicles and passengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling 
upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the ferry-boats of Swit- 
zerland, ready for our reception. Another drive through a more open 
country, and we reach a fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts 
away into a shrubbery guarded by a rustic gateway, passing through 
which, we are brought by a sudden turn into the planter's house, buried 
in trees, which dispute with the green ^ward and with wild flower-beds 
every yard of the space which lies between the hall-door and the waters 
of the Pedee ; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of 
fields just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice crops, 
marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing 
forest, the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown gliding 
as it were through the fields, indicate the existence of another navi- 
gable river still beyond. Leaving with regret the verandah which com- 
manded so enchanting a foreground, we enter the house, and are re- 
minded by its low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses 
yet to be found in parts of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with 
additions, made by the luxury and love of foreign travel, of more than 
one generation of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy 
illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early 
colonial governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no uncer- 
tain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, 



PICTtJRES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 27 

of which Copley has left iis too few exemplars ; and one portrait of Ben- 
jamin West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An 
excellent library — filled with collections of French and English classics, 
and with those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the Memoires 
pour Servir, books of travel and history such as delighted our fore- 
fathers in the last century, and many works of American and general 
history — affords ample occupation for a rainy day. But alas ! these, and 
all things good which else the house affords, can be enjoyed but for a 
brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm, developed 
every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened flower, 
of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind 
the poisoned breath comes, borne to the home of the white man, and 
he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on their 
shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity 'tis true, the 
old Madeira garnered 'neath the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of 
life, and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavor for the 
infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome visitors. This 
is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale re- 
peated to us beneath the porch, when the moon enhances w^hile soften- 
ing the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of mocking-birds 
fills the grove. 

Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he 
did with Nasidienus, and drmk such wine as can be only found among 
the descendants of the ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, 
learnt the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial ere the 
demon of oidium had dried up their generous sources forever. To 
these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, 
compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and 
fruits, all good of their kind. And is there any thing bitter rising up 
from the bottom of the social bowl ? My black friends Avho attend on 
me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries 
and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire, 
off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negro- 
hood, which IS separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their 
fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The 
doors and windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling- 
piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his 
slaves. But I have seen, within the short time I have been in this 
part of the world, several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, 
in which masters suifered at the hands of their slaves. There is some- 
thing suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that " we are 
not afraid of our slaves." The curfew and the night patrol in the 



28 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the pohce regulations, prove 
that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My 
host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, 
they should be so wdth him. 

These people are fed by their master. They have upwards of half 
a pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear 
poultry and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. They arc 
clothed by their master. He keeps them in sickness as in health. 
Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and molasses for the deserv- 
ing. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice has been 
just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield 
plentifully ; for the w^aters of the river are fat, and they are let in when- 
ever the planter requires it, by means of floodgates and small canals, 
through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for 
loading the steamers. 



Mobile, Ala., Saturday, May 11, 1861; 

The wayfarer who confides in the maps of a strange country, or'who 
should rely upon even the guide-books of the United States, which 
still lack a Murray or a Bradshaw, may be at times embarrassed by in- 
superable hills and innavigable rivers. When, however, I saw the three 
towering stories of the high-pressure steamer Southern Republic, on 
board of which we tumbled down the steep bank of the Alabama river 
at Montgomery, any such misgivings vanished from my mind. So 
colossal an ark could have ascended no mythical stream, and the ex- 
istence and capabilities of the Alabama were demonstrated by its 
presence. 

Punctuality is reputed a rare virtue in the river steamers of the West 
and South, and seldom leave their wharves until they have bagged a 
fair complement of passengers, although steaming up and ringing gongs 
and bells every afternoon for a week or more before their departure, as 
if travelers were to be swarmed like bees. Whether stimulated by the 
infectious activity of these " war times," or convinced that the " polite- 
ness of kings" is the best steamboat policy, the grandson of Erin who 
owns and commands the Southern Republic, casts off" his fastenings but 
lialf an hour after his promised start, and the short puff" of the engine is 
enlivened by the wild strains of a steam-organ called a " caliope," which 
gladdens us with the assurance that we are in the incomparable " land 
of Dixie." 

Reserving for a cooler hour the attractions of the lower floor, a Hades 
consecrated to machinery, freight and negroes, we betake ourselves to 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 29 

the second landing, -where we find a long dining hall, surrounded by two 
tiers of state-rooms, the upper one accessible by a stair-way leading to 
a gallery, which divides the " saloon" between floor and roof. We are 
shown our quarters, which leave much to be desired and nothing to 
spare, and rush from their suffocating atmosphere to the outer balcony, 
where a faint breeze stirs the air. There is a roofed balcony above us 
that corresponds to the second tier of state-rooms, from which a party 
of excited secessionists are discharging revolvers at the dippers on the 
surface, and the cranes on the banks of the river. 

After we have dropped down five or six miles from Montgomery, the 
steam-whistle announces our approach to a landing, and, as there is no 
wharf in view, we watch curiously the process by which our top-heavy 
craft, under the sway of a four-knot current, is to swing round to her in- 
visible moorings. As we draw nigh to a wagon-worn indenture in the 
bank, the " scream" softens into the dulcet pipes of the " caliope," and 
the steamer doubles upon her track, like an elephant turning at bay, her 
two engines being as independent of each other as seceding states, and 
slowly stemm'.no- the stream, lays her nose upon the bank, and holds it 
there Avitli the judicious aid of her paddles until a long plank is run 
ashore from her bow, over which three passengers with valises make 
w^ay for a planter and his family, who come on board. The gang plank 
is hauled in, the steamer turns her head down stream with the expert- 
ness of a whale in a canal, and we resume our voyajre*. We renew these 
stoppages various times before dark, landing here a barrel and there a 
box, and occasionally picking up a passenger. 

After supper, which is served on a series of parallel tables running 
athwai-t the saloon, we return to enjoy from the balcony the cool obscu- 
rity of the evening in this climate, where light means heat. As we clea\ e 
the glassy surface of the black water the timber-clad banks seem to hem 
us in more closely, and to shut up the vista before us, and while we 
glide down with a i-apidity which would need but the roar of the rapids 
to prefigure a cataract beyond, we yield to the caprice of fancy, institut- 
ing comparisons between the dark perspective ahead and the mystery of 
the future. 

Again a scream, and a ruddy light flashes from our prow and deepens 
the shades around us. This proceeds from the burning of *' light-wood" 
— a highly resinous pine — in a wire basket hung on gimbals, and held 
like a landing-net below the bow of the steamer, so as to guide without 
blinding the pilot, who is ensconced like a Hansom cabman upon its 
roof. The torch-bearer raises his cresset as we steam up to the bank, 
and plants it in a socket, when a hawser is seized round a tree, and the 
crew turn ashore to " wood up." Theie is a steep high bank above us, 



30 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

and while dusky forms are flitting to and fro with food for our furnace, 
we survey a hmg stair-way ascending the bank at a sharp angle in a cut, 
which is lost in the sheds that crown the eminence over-head. This 
stair is flanked on either side by the bars of an iron tram-way, up whicli 
freight is hauled v;hen landed, and parallel to it is a wooden slide, down 
which bales of cotton and sacks of corn are shot upon the steamer. One 
or two passengers slowly ascend, and a voice in the air notifies us that 
a team is at hand with a load of ladies, who shortly after are seen pick- 
ing their way down the flight of steps. The cresset is constantly re- 
plenished with fresh light-wood, and the shadows cast by its flickering 
flame make us regret that we have not with us a Turner to preserve this 
scene, which would have been a study for Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa. 

At midnight we halt for a couple of hours at Selma, a " rising town," 
which has taken a start of late, owing to the arrival of a branch railw^ay 
that connects it with Tennessee and the Mississippi River. Here a 
huge embarcadere, sevei-al stories high, seems fastened to the side of the 
bank, and affords us an opportunity of stepping out from either story of 
the Southern Republic upon a corresponding landing. Upon one of 
these floors there are hackmen and hotel runners, competing for those 
who land, and indicating the proximity of a town, if not a city. Oar 
captain had resolved upon making but a short stay, in lieu of tying up 
until morning — his usual practice — when an acquaintance comes on board 
and begs him to wait an hour for a couple of ladies and some children 
whom he will hunt np a mile or so out of town. Times are hard, and 
the captain very cheerfully consents, not insensable to the flattering in- 
sinuation, " You know our folks never go with any one but you, if they 
can help it." 

The next day and evening are a repetition of the foregoing scenes, 
with more plantations in view, and a general air of tillage and prosper- 
ity. We are struck by the uniformity of the soil, which everywhere 
seems of inexhaustible fertility, and by the unvarying breadth of the 
stream, which, but for its constantly recurring sinuosities, might pass 
for a broad ship-canal. We also remark that the bluflfs rarely sink into 
bottoms susceptible of overflow, and admire the verdure of the primi- 
tive forest, a tangle of mangoliasin full flower, of laurels, and of various 
oaks peculiar to this region, and which, though never rising to the dig- 
nity of that noble tree in higher latitudes, are many of them extremely 
graceful. All this sylva of moderate stature is intertwined with creepers, 
and at intervals we see the Spanish moss, indicating the malarious exha- 
lations of the soil beneath. The Indian corn, upon which 1 he Southern- 
ers rely piincipally for food, has attained a height of two feet, and we 
are told that, in consequence of the war, it is so\\n in greater breadth 



nCTUEES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 31 

than usual. The cotton plant has but just peeped above the earth, and, 
alludiiio- to its tenderness, those around us express anxieties about that 
crop, which, it seems, are never allayed until it has been picked, bagged 
and pressed, shipped and sold. 

As I am not engaged upon an itinerary, let these sketches suffice to 
convey an idea of the 417 miles of winding river which connect Mont- 
gomery with Mobile, to which place the Southern Republic conveyed 
us in thirty-five hours, stoppings included. 

One of the Egyptian pyramids owes its origin to the strange caprice 
of a princess, and the Southern Republic is said to have been built with 
the proceeds of an accidental " haul" of Gold Coast natives, who fell 
into the net of her enterprising proprietor. This worthy, born of Irish 
parents in Milk street, is too striking a type of what the late Mr. Web- 
ster was wont to call " a Northern man with Southern principles," not 
to deserve something more than a passing notice. 

For out-and-out Southern notions there is nothing in Dixie's Land 
like the successful emigrant from the North and East. Captain 
Meagher had at his fingers' ends all the politico-economical facts and 
figures of the Southern side of the question, and rested his reason 
solely upon the more sordid and material calculations of the secession- 
ists. It was a question of tariff's. The North had, no doubt, provided 
the protection of a navy, the facilities of mails, the construction of forts, 
custom-houses, and post-offices, in the South, and placed countless well- 
paid offices at the disposal of gentlemen fond of elegant leisure ; but 
for all these the South had been paying more than their value, and 
when abolitionists were allowed to elect a sectional president, and the 
system of forced labor, which is the basis of Southern prosperity, was 
threatened, the South were but too happy to take a " snap judgment," 
as in a pie poudre court, and declare the federal compact forfeited and 
annulled forever. 

During the long second day of our voyage we examined the faces of 
the proletarians, whose color and constitutions so well adapt them for 
the Cyclopian realm of the main deck. Among them we detect several 
physiognomies w^hich strike us as resembling seedlings from the Gold 
Coast, rather than the second or third fruits of ancient transplantation. 
A fellow-traveller gratifies, at the same time, our curiosity and our pen- 
etration. There are several native Africans, or, as they are called in 
Cuba, homes, on board. They are the property of the argumentative 
captain, and were acquired by a coup de main, at which I have already 
hinted in this letter. It seems that a club of planters in this state and 
one or two others resolved, little more than a year ago, to import a 
cargo of Africans. They were influenced partly by cupidity and partly 



32 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

by a fancy to set the United States laws at defiance, and to evince 
their contempt for New England philanthropy. The job was accepted 
by an Eastern house, which engaged to deliver the cargo at a certain 
Tvoint on the coast within certain limits of time. 

Whether the shipment arrived earlier than anticipated, or whether 
3aptain Meagher was originally designated as the person to whom the 
bold and delicate manoeuvre of landing them should be intrusted, it is 
certain that on a certain Sunday in last July he took a little coasting 
trip in his steamer Czar, and appeared at Mobile on the following 
morning in season to make his regular voyage up river. It is no less 
certain that he ran the dusky strangers in at night by an unfrequented 
pass, and landed them among the cane-brakes of his own plantation 
">yith sufficient celerity to be back at the moorings of the Czar without 
] is absence having been noticed. The vessel from which the bonzes 
were delivered were scuttled and sunk, and her master and crew found 
their way North by rail. 

But the parties in interest soon claimed to divide the spoils, when, 
to their infinite disgust, the enterprising captain very coolly professed 
to ignore the whole business, and defied them to seek to recover by suit 
at law property the importation of which was regarded and would be 
ounished as felony, if not as piracy, by the judicial tribunals. A case 
was made, and issue joined, when the captain proved a circumstantial 
alibi, and, having cast the claimants, doled them out a few bonzes, per- 
haps to escape assassination, as shells, Avhile he kept the oyster in the 
shape of the pick of the importation, which he still holds, reconciling 
his conscience to the transaction by interpreting it as salvage. 

All this is told us by our interlocutor, who was one of the losers by 
the affair, and who stigmatized the conduct of its hero as having been 
'.reacherous. The latter, after repeated jocular inquiries, suffers his 
vanity to subdue his reticence, and finishes by " acknowledging the 
-^orn." 

In the afternoon of the second day we meet two steamers ascending 
;he river with heavy cargoes, and are told that they are the Keyes and 
\.he Lewis, recently warned off and not seized by the blockading squad- 
■^on off Pensacola. They are deep with provisions for the forces of the 
Confederate States army before Pickens, which must now be dispatch- 
id from Montgomery by rail. 

In Mobile, for the first time since leaving Washington, " we realize" 

'he entire stagnation of business. There are but five vessels in port, 

;uiefly English, which will suffice to carry away the debris of the cotton 

rop. Exchange on the North is unsalable, owing to the impossibility 

:>f importing coin through the unsettled country. And bills on Lon- 



nCTUKES OF SOUTIIERX LIFE. 33 



don are of slow sale at par, which would leave a profit of seven per cent, 
upon the importation of gold fr6m your side. 



Mobile, Sunday, May 12. 
The heat of the city rendered an excursion to which I was invited, 
for the purpose of visiting the forts at the entrance of the bay, exceed- 
ingly agreeable, and I was glad to get out from the smell of warm 
bricks to the breezy waters of the sea. The party comprised many of 
the leading merchants and politicians of this city, which is the third in 
importance as a port of exportation in the United States of America. 
There was not a man among them who did not express, with more or 
less determination, the resolve never to submit to the rule of the ac- 
cursed North. Let there be no mistake whatever as to the unauimity 
which exists at present in the South to fight for what it calls its inde- 
pendence, and to carry on a war to the knife with the government of 
the United States. I have frequently had occasion to remark the cu- 
rious operation of the doctrine of state rights on the minds of the peo- 
ple; but an examination of the institutions of the country as they 
actually exist leads to the inference that, where the tyranny of the ma- 
jority is at once irresponsible and cruel, it is impossible for any man, 
where the doctrine prevails, to resist it with safety or success. It is the 
inevitable result of the action of this majority, as it operates in Amer- 
ica, first to demoralize and finally to absorb the minority ; and even 
those who have maintained what are called " Union doctrines," and 
who arc opposed to secession or revolution, have bowed their heads be- 
fore the majesty of the mass, and have hastened to signify their acqui- 
escence in the decisions which they have hitherto opposed. The 
minority, cowardly in consequence of the arbitrary and vindictive char- 
acter of the overwhelming power against which it has struggled, and 
disheartened by defeat, of which the penalties arc tremendous in such 
conflicts as these, hastens to lick the feet of the conqueror, and rushes 
with frantic cheers after the chariot in the triumph which celebrates its 
own humiliation. If there be a minority at all on this great question 
of secession in the Southern states, it hides in holes and corners inac- 
cessible to the light of day, and sits there in darkness and in sorrow, 
silent and fearful, if not dumb and hopeless. There were oflBcers who 
had served with distinction under the flag of the United States, now 
anxious to declare that it was not their flag, and that they had no aflec- 
tion for it, although they were ready to admit they would have con- 
tinued to serve under it if their states had not gone out. A man's 
state, in fact, under the operation of these majority doctrines to which 

9* 



34 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

I have adverted, holds hostages for his fidelity to the majority, not only 
ill such land or fortune as he may possess within her bounds, but in his 
family, his relatives and kin, and if the state revolts, the officer who re- 
mains faithful to the flag of the United States is considered by the 
authorities of the revolting state a traitor, and, what is worse, he is 
treated in the persons of those he leaves behind him as the worst kind 
of political renegade. General Scott, but a few months ago the most 
honored of men in a republic which sets such store on military success, 
is now i-eviled and abused because, being a Virginian by birth, he did 
not immediately violate his oath, abandon his post, and turn to fight 
against the flag which he has illustrated by repeated successes, during 
a career of half a century, the moment his state passed an ordinance of 
secession. 

An intelligent and accomplished officer, Avho accompanied me to-day 
around the forts under his command, told me that he had all along 
resisted secession, but that when his state went out he felt it was neces- 
sary to resign his commission in the United States army, and to take 
service with the confederates. Among the most determined opponents 
of the North, and the most vehement friends of what are called here 
" domestic institutions," are the British i-esidents, English, Irish and 
Scotch, who have settled here for trading purposes, and who are fre- 
quently slave-holders. These men have no state rights to uphold, but 
they are convinced of the excellence of things as they are, or find it 
their interest to be so. 

The waters of two rivers fall into the head of the Bay of Mobile, 
which is, in fact, a narrow sea-creek, between, low sandy banks covered 
with pine and forest trees, broken here and there into islands, extending 
some thirty miles inland, with a- breadth varying from three to seven 
miles. No attempt has been made, apparently, to improve the waters, 
or to provide docks or wharfage for the numerous cotton ships which 
lie out at the mouth of the bay, more than twenty five miles from Mo- 
bile. All the cotton has to be sent down to them in lighters, and the 
nnmber of men thus employed in the cotton season is loading the 
barges, navigating, and transferring the cargoes to the ships, is very con- 
siderable, and their rate of wages is high. 

The horror entertained by a merchant captain of the shore is well 
known, and the skippers are delighted at an anchorage so far from land, 
which at the same time detains the crews in the ships and prevents 
" running." At present there are but seven ships at the anchorage? 
ncaj'ly all British, and one of the latter appears in the distance hard and 
fast ashore, though whether she got there in consequence of the lights 
not being burning or from neglect it is impossible to say. Fort Gaines, 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFi:. 35 

on the right hank of the channel, near the entrance, is an unfinished 
shell of a fort, which was commenced by the United States engineers 
some time ago, and which it would not be easy to finish without a large 
outlay of money and labor. It is not well placed to resist either a land 
attack or an assault by boats. A high "sand-bank in front of one of the 
faces screens the fire, and a wood on another side, if occupied by rifle- 
men, would render it difficult to work the barbette guns. It is not 
likely, however, that the fort will be attacked. The channel it com- 
mands is only fit for light vessels. From this fort to the other side of 
the channel, where Fort Morgan stands, the distance is over three miles, 
and the deep-water channel is close to the latter fort. The position of 
the Gaines is held by a strong body of Alabama troops — stout, sturdy 
men, who have volunteered from farm, field, or desk. They are armed 
with ordinary muskets of the old pattern, and their uniform is by no 
means uniform ; but the men look fit for service. The fort would take 
a garrison of five hundred men if fully mounted, but the parapets are 
mere partition walls of brickwork crenellated ; the bomb-proofs are 
unfinished, and, but for a few guns mounted on the sand-hills, the place 
is a defenceless shell-trap. There are no guns in the casemates, and 
there is no position ready to bear the weight of a gun in barbette. The 
guns which are on the beach are protected by sand-bag traverses, and 
are more formidable than the whole fortress. The steamer proceeded 
across the channel to Fort Morgan, which is a work of considerable 
importance, and is assuming a formidable character under the superin- 
tendence of Colonel Hardee, formerly of the United States army. It has 
a regular trace, bastion and curtain, with a dry ditch and drawbridge, 
well-made casemates and bomb-proofs, and a tolerable armament of co- 
lumbiads, forty-two and thirty-two pounders, a few ten-inch mortars, and 
Hght guns in the external works at the salients. The store of ammu- 
nition seems ample. Some of the fuses are antiquated, and the gun 
carriages are old-fashioned. The open parade and the unprotected 
gorges of the casemates v/ould render the work extremely unpleasant 
under a shell fire, and the buildings and barracks inside are at present 
open to the influences of heat. The magazines are badly traversed and 
inadequately protected. A very simple and apparently efl'ective contri- 
vance for dispensing with the use of the sabot in shells was shown to 
^ me by Colonel Maury, the inventor. It consists of two circular grummets 
i of rope, one at the base and the other at the upper circumference of the 
' shell, made by a simple machinery to fit tightly to the sphere, and bound 
together by thin copper wire. The grummets fit the bore of the gun 
exactly, and act as wads, allowing the base of the shell to rest in clor^o 
contact with the charge, and breaking into oakum oa leaving ihe 



:^.(^ PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

< auzzle. Those "who know what mischief can be aone by the fragments 
>f the sabot when fired over the heads of troops, will appreciate this 
■imple invention, which is said to give increased range to the horizontal 
r^iell. There must be about sixty guns in this work; it is over-garri- 
-ned, and, indeed, it seems to be the difficulty here to know what to 
,0 with the home volunteers. Rope mantlets are used on the breeches 
>f some of the barbette guns. At night the harbor is in perfect dark- 
less. Notwithstanding the defences I have indicated, it would be quite 
>ossible to take Fort Morgan with a moderate force, well supplied with 
he means of vertical fire. 

" Are there many mosquitos here ?" inquired I of the waiter on the 
;ay of my arrival. " Well, there's a few, I guess ; but I wish there 
./ere ten times as many." " In the name of goodness, why do you say 
-o ?" asked I, with some surprise and indignation. " Because Ave'd get 

id of the Black Republicans out of Fort Pickens all the sooner," 

replied he. There is a strange unilateral tendency in the minds of men 
m judging of the operation of causes and results in such a contest as 
+hat which now prevails between the North and the South. The waiter 
icasoned and spoke like many of his betters. The mosquitos, for 
rv'hose aid he was so anxious, were regarded by him as true Southerners, 
.ho would only torture his enemies. The idea of these persecuting 
■jltle fiends being so unpatriotic as to vex the Confederates in their 
sandy camp never entered into his mind for a moment. In the same 
way, a gentleman of intelligence, who was speaking to me of the terri- 
ble sufferings which would be inflicted on the troops at Tortugas and 
at Pickens by fever, dysentery, and summer heats, looked quite sur- 
prised when I asked him, " whether these agencies would not prove 
equally terrible to the troops of the Confederates ?" 



Mobile, May 18, 1861. 

I avail myself of the departure of a gentleman who is goiug to New 
York by the shortest route he can find, to send you the accompanying 
'etters. The mails are stopped ; so are the telegraphs ; and it is doubt- 
ful whether I can get to New Orleans by water. Of what I saw at 
Fort Pickens and Pensacola here is an account, written in a very hur- 
ried manner, and under very peculiar circumstances. 

Tuesday, May 14, 1861. 

Two New Orleans gentlemen, who came overland from Pensacola 
yesterday, give such an account of their miseries from heat, dust, sand, 
and want of accommodation, in the dreary waste through which they 
}>assed for more than seventeen hours, that I sought out some other 
way of going there, and at last heard of a small schooner, called the 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. Sl 

Diana, which would gladly undertake to run round by sea, if permitted 
to enter by the blockading squadron. 

She was neither clean nor neat looking; her captain, a tall, wild- 
haired young man, had more the air of a mechanic than of a sailor, but 
he knew his business well, as the result of the voyage showed. His 
crew consisted of three men and a negro cook. Three gentlemen of 
Mobile, who were anxious to visit General Bragg' s camp, agreed to 
join me, but before I sailed I obtained a promise that they would not 
violate the character of neutrals as long as they were with me, and an as- 
surance that they were not in any way engaged in or employed by the 

Confederate States forces. " Surely you will not have Mr. R 

hanged, sir?" said the mayor of Mobile to me when I told liitii I 
could not consent to pass off the gentleman in question as a private 

friend. " No, I shall do nothing to get Mr. R • hanged. It will be 

his own act which causes it, but I will not allow Mr. R to accom- 
pany me under false pretences." Having concluded our bargain with 
the skipper at a tolerably fair rate, and laid in a stock of stores and 
provisions, the party sailed from Mobile at five in the evening of Tuesday, 
May 14, with the flag of the Confederate States flying; but, as a pre- 
cautionary measure, I borrowed from our acting consul, Mr. Magee, a 
British ensign, which, with a flag of truce, would win the favorable 
consideration of the United States squadron. Our craft, the somewhat 
Dutch build of which gave no great promise of speed, came, to our 
surprise and pleasure, up with the lights of Fort Morgan at nine o'clock, 
and we were allowed to pass unchallenged through a " swash," as a 
narrow channel over the bar is called, which, despite the absence of 
beacons and buoys, our skipper shot through under the guidance of a 
sounding-pole, which gave, at various plunges, but a few inches to 
spare. 

The shore is as flat as a pancake — a belt of white sand, covered with 
drift-logs and timber, and with a pine forest ; not a home or human 
habitation of any sort to be seen for forty miles, from Fort Moro;an to 
the entrance of the harbor of Pensacola ; cheerless, miserable, full of 
swamps, the haunts of aligators, cranes, snakes, and pelicans; with 
lagoons, such as the Perdida, swelling into inland seas ; deep buried in 
pine woods, and known only to wild creatures, and to the old filibus- 
ters — swarming with mosquitos. As the Diana rushed along within a 
quarter of a mile of this grim shore, great fish flew off from the shal- 
lows, and once a shining gleam flashed along the waters, and winged 
its way alongside the little craft — a monster shark, which ploughed 
through the sea pari passu for some hundred yards leeward or the 
craft, and distinctly visible in the wonderful phosphorescence around 



38 . PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

it, and then dashed away with a trail of light seawerd, on some errand 
of voracity, with tremendous force and vigor. The wretched Spaniards 
who came to this ill-named Florida, must often have cursed their stars. 
How rejoiced were they when the government of the United States 
reheved them from their dominion! Once during the night some 
lights were seen on shore, as if from a camp-fire. The skipper pro- 
posed to load an old iron carronade and blaze away at them, and one 
of the party actually got out his revolver to fire, but I objected very 
strongly to these valorous proceedings, and suggesting that they might 
be friends who were there, and that, friends or foes, they were sure to 
return our fire, succeeded in calming the martial ardor on board the 
Diana. The fires were very probably made by some of the horsemen 
lately sent out by General Bragg to patrol the coast, but the skipper said 
that in all his life-long experience he had never seen a human creature 
or a light on that shore before. The wind was so favorable, and the 
Diana so fast, that she would have run into the midst of the United 
States squadron off" Fort Pickens had she pursued her course. There- 
fore, when she was within about ten miles of the station she hove to, 
and lay off" and on for about two hours. Before dawn the sails were 
filled, and off she went once more, bowling along merrily, till with the 
first blush of day there came in sight Fort M'Rae, Fort Pickens, and 
the masts of the squadron, just rising above the blended horizon of low 
shore and sea. The former, which is on the western shore of the main- 
land, is in the hands of the Confederate troops. The latter is just op- 
fiosite to it, on the extremity of the sand-bank, called Santa Rosa 
sland, which, for forty-five miles runs in a belt parallel to the shore of 
Florida, at a distance varying from one and a quarter to four miles. 
To make smooth water of it, the schooner made several tacks shore- 
ward. In the second of these tacks the subtle entrance of Perdida 
Creek is pointed out, which, after several serpentine and re-entering 
undulations of channel, one of which is only separated from the sea 
for a mile or more by a thin wall of sand-bank, widens to meet the dis- 
charge of a tolerably spacious inland lake. The Perdida is the divid- 
ing line between the states of Alabama and Florida. 

The flagstaff of Fort M'Rae soon became visible, and in fainter out- 
line beyond it that of Fort Pickens, and the hulls of the fleet, in which 
one can make out three war-steamers, a frigate, and a sloop-of-war, and 
^hen the sharpset canvas of a schooner, the police craft of this beat, 
bearing down upon us. The skipper, with some uneasiness, announces 
the small schooner that is sailing in the wind's eye as the " Oriental," 
and confesses to having already been challenged and warned off by her 
sentinel master. We promised him immunity for the past and safety 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERX LIFE. 39 

for the future, and, easing off the main sheet, he lays the Diana on her 
course for the fleet. 

Fort M'Rae, one of the obsolete school of fastnesses, rounds up on 
our left. Beyond it, on the shore, is Barrancas, a square-faced work, 
half a mile further up the channel, and more immediately facing Fort 
Pickens. A thick wood crowns the low shore, which trends away to 
the eastward, but amid the sand the glass can trace the outlines of the 
batteries. Pretty-looking detached houses line the beach ; some loftier 
edifices gather close up to the shelter of a tall chimney wdiich is vomit- 
ing out clouds of smoke, and a few masts and spars checker the w^hite 
fronts of the large buildings and sheds, which, with a big shears, indi- 
cate the position of the navy-yard of Warrington, commonly called that 
of Pensacola, although the place of that name lies several miles higher 
up the creek. Fort M'Rae seems to have sunk at the foundations ; the 
crowns of many of the casemates are cracked, and the water-face is 
poor looking. Fort Pickens, on the contrary, is a solid, substantial- 
looking work, and reminds one something of Fort l^aul at Sebastopol, 
as seen from the sea, except that it has only one tier of casemates, and 
is not so high. 

As the Oriental approaches, the Diana throws her foresail aback, 
and the pretty little craft, with a full-sized United States ensign 
flying, and the muzzle of a brass howitzer peeping ov^er her forecastle, 
ranges up luff, and taking an easy sweep lies to alongside us. A boat 
is lowered from her and is soon alongside, steered by an officer ; her 
crew are armed to the teeth with pistols and cutlasses. " Ah,^I think 
I have seen you before. What schooner is this ?" " The Diana, from 
Mobile." The officer steps on deck, and announces himself as Mr. 
Brown, master in the United States navy, in charge of the boarding 
vessel Oriental. The crew secure their boat and step up after him. 
The skipper, looking very sulky, hands his papers to the officer. 
" Now, sir, make sail, and lie to under the quarter of that steamer, 
the guardship Powhatan." 

Mr. Brown was exceedingly courteous when he heard who the party 
were. The Mobilians, however, looked as black as thunder ; nor were 
they at all better pleased when they heard the skipper ask if he did 
not know there was a strict blockade of the port. The Powhatan is a 
paddle steamer of 2,200 tuns and ten guns, and is known to our service 
as the llag-ship of Commodore Tatnall, in Chinese waters, when that 
gallant veteran gave us timely and kindly proof of the truth of his well- 
knowm expression, "Blood is thicker than water." Upon her spar- 
deck there is a stout, healthy-looking crew, which seems quite able to 
attend to her armament of ten heavy ten-inch Dahlo;ren columbiads. 



40 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

and the formidable eleven-inclies of the same family on the forecastle. 
Her commander, Captain Porter, though only a lieutenant command- 
ing, has seen an age of active service, both in the navy and in the 
merchant steam marine service, to which he was detailed for six or 
seven years after the discovery of California. The party were ushered 
into the cabin, and Captain Porter received them with perfect courtesy, 
heard our names and object, and then entered into general conversation, 
in wdiich the Mobilians, thawed by his sailorly frankness, gradually 
joined, as well as they could. Over and over again I must acknowl- 
edge the exceeding politeness and civility with which your corre- 
spondent has been received by the authorities on both sides in this 
unhappy war. 

Though but little beyond the age of forty, Captain Porter has been 
long enough in the navy to have imbibed some of those prejudices which 
by the profane are stigmatized as fogyisms. Until the day previous 
he had, he told me, felt disposed to condemn rifled cannon of a small 
calibre as "gimcracks," but had been ]-apidly converted to the "Arm- 
strong faith" by the following experiment. He was making target 
practice with his heavy gun at a distance of some 2,600 yards. At 
any thing like a moderate elevation the experiment was unsatisfactory, 
and while his gunners were essaying to harmonize cause and effect, the 
charge and the elevation, he bethought him of a little rifled brass play- 
thing which Captain Dahlgren had sent on board a day or two before his 
departure. To his astonishment the ball, after careering until he 
thought "it would never stop going," struck the water 1,000 yards 
beyond the target, and established a reputation he had never believed 
possible for a howitzer of six-pound calibre carrying a twelve-pound 
bolt. He observed that the ancient walls of Fort M'Rae would not 
resist this new missile for half an hour. 

If it comes to fighting you will hear more of the Powhatan and 
Captain Porter. He has been repeatedly in the harbor and along the 
enemy's works at night in his boat, and knows their position thoroughly, 
and he showed me on his chart the various spots marked off" whence he 
can sweep their works and do them immense mischief. " The Pow- 
hatan is old, and if she sinks I can't help it." She is all ready for ac- 
tion ; boarding nettings triced up, field-pieces and howitzers prepared 
against night boarding, and the whole of her bows padded internally, 
with dead wood and sails, so as to prevent her main deck being raked 
as she stands stern on toward the forts. Her crew are as fine a set of 
men as I have seen of late days on board a man-of-war. They are 
healthy, well fed, regularly paid, and can be relied on to do their duty 
to a man. As far as I could judge, the impression of the oflScers was, 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 41 

that General Bragg would not be rash enough to expose himself to the 
heavy chastisement which, in their belief, awaits him if he is rash 
enough to open fire upon Fort Pickens. As Captain Porter is not the 
senior officer of the fleet, he signaled to the flag-ship, and was desired 
to send us on board. 

One more prize has been made this morning — a little schooner with 
a crew of Italians and laden with vegetables. This master, a Roman 
of Civita Yecchia, pretends to be in great trouble, in order to squeeze 
a good price out of the captain for his " tuttl fruti e cosi diver si. '^ 
The officers assured me that all the statements made by the coasting 
skippers when they return to port from the squadron, are lies from be- 
ginning to end. 

A ten-oared barge carried the party to the United States frigate 
Sabine, on board of which Flag-Captain Adams hoists his pennant* 
On our way we had a fair view of the Brooklyn, whose armament of 
22 heavy guns is said to be the most formidable battery in the Ameri- 
can navy. Her anti-type, the Sabine, an old-fashioned fifty-gun frigate, 
as rare an object upon modern seas as an old post-coach is upon mod- 
ern roads, is reached at last. As one treads her decks, the eyes, ac- 
customed for so many weeks to the outlandish uniforms of brave but 
undisciplined Southern volunteers, feel en pays cle connaissance^ when 
they rest upon the solid mass of 300 or 400 quid-rolling, sunburnt, and 
resolute-looking blue-shirted tars, to whom a three years' cruise has 
imparted a family aspect which makes them almost as hard to distin- 
guish apart as so many Chinamen. 

A believer in the serpent-symbol might feel almost tempted to regard 
the log of the Sabine as comprising the Alpha and the Omega of, at 
least, the last half-century of the American republic. Her keel was 
laid shortly after our last war with Brother Jonathan, and so long as 
the temple of Janus remained closed — her size having rendered her 
unfit to participate in what is called the Mexican war — she remained 
in the ship-house of the navy-yard which had witnessed her baptism. 
In the year 1858 she was summoned from her retirement to officiate as 
flag-ship of the " Paraguay expedition," and, after having conveyed the 
American commissioner to Montevideo, whence he proceeded with 
a flotilla of steamers and sloops-of-war up to Corrientes, and thence 
in the temporary flag-ship, the steamer Fulton, to Assumpcion, she 
brought him back to New York in May, 1859, and was then dis- 
patched to complete her cruise as part of the home squadron in the 
Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. During the concluding months of 
her cruise the political complications of the North and South burst 
into the present rupture, and the day before our visit one of her lieu- 



42 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

tenants, a North Carolinian, had left her to espouse, as nearly all the 
Southern ofricers of both army and navy have done, the cause of his 
native state. Captain Adams is in a still more painful predicament. 
During his eventful voyage, which commenced with a six days' ex- 
perience in the terrible Bermuda cyclone of November, 1858, he had 
been a stranger to the bitter sectional animosities engendered by the 
last election; and had recently joined the blockade of this port, where 
he finds a son enlisted in the ranks of the C. S. A., and learns that two 
others form part of the Virginia division of Mr. Jefterson Davis's forces. 
Born in Pennsylvania, he married in Louisiana, where he has a planta- 
tion and the remainder of his family, and he smiles grimly as one of 
our companions brings him the playful message from his daughter, 
who has been elected v'tvandiere of a New Orleans regiment, " that she 
trusts he may be starved while blockading the South, and that she in- 
tends to push on to Washington and get a lock of Old Abe's hair" — 
a Sioux lady would have said his scalp. 

The veteran sailor's sad story demands deep sympathy. I, however, 
cannot help enjoying at least the variety of hearing a little of the altera 
pars. It is now nearh' six weeks since I entered " Dixie's Land," dur- 
ing which period I must confess I have had a sufficiency of the music 
and drums, the cavaliering and the roystering of the Southern gallants. 
As an impartial obser\ er, I may say I find less bitterness and denuncia- 
tion, but quite as dogged a resolution upon the Roundhead side. Some 
experience, or at least observation of the gunpowder aigument, has 
taught us that attack is always a more grateful office than defence, and, 
if we are to judge of the sturdy resolution of the inmates of Fort 
Pickens by the looks of the ofiicers and crews of the fleet. Fort Pickens 
will fall no easy prize, if at all. 

After some conversation with Captain Adams, and the ready hospi- 
tality of his cabin, he said finally he would take on himself to permit 
me and the party to land at the navy-yard, and to visit the enemy's 
quarters, relying on my character as a neutral and a subject of Great 
Britain that no improper advantage would be taken of the permission. 
Li giving that leave he was, he said, well aware that he was laying him- 
self open to attack, but he acted on his own judgment and responsibility. 
AVe must, however, hoist a flag of truce, as he had been informed by 
General Bragg that he considered the intimation he had received from 
the fleet of the blockade of the port was a declaration of war, and that 
he would fire on any vessel from the fleert which approached his com- 
mand. I bade good-by to Captain Adams with sincere regret, and if — 
but I may not utter the wish here. Our barge was waiting to take us 
to the Oriental, in which we sailed pleasantly away down to the Powlia- 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 43 

tan to inform Captain Porter I had received permission to go on shore. 
Another ofticer was in his cabin when I entered — Captain Poore of the 
Brooklyn — and lie seemed a little surprised when he heard that Captain 
Adams had given leave to all to go on shore. " What, all these editors 
of Southern newspapers who are with you, sir ?" I assured him they 
were nothing of the kind, and after a few kind words I made my adieu, 
and went on board the Diana with my companions. 

Hoisting one of our only two table-cloths to the masthead as a flag 
of truce, we dropped slowly with the tide through the channel that runs 
parallel to one face of Fort Pickens. The wind favored us but little, 
and the felling breeze enabled all on board to inspect deliberately the 
seemingly artistic preparations for the threatened attack which frowns 
and bristles from three miles of forts and batteries arrayed around the 
slight indenture opposite. Heavy sand-bag traverses protect the coiners 
of the parapets, and seem solid enough to defy the batteries ensconced 
in earthworks around the lighthouse, which to an outside glance seems 
the most formidable point of attack, directed as it is against the weaker 
flank of the fort at its most vulnerable angle. 

A few soldiers and officers upon the rampart appeared to be inhaling 
the freshening breeze which arose to waft the schooner across the chan- 
nel, and enable her to coast the main-shore, so that all could take note 
of the necklace of bastions, earthworks, and columbiads with which 
General Bragg hopes to throttle his adversary. We passed by Barran- 
cas, the nearest point of attack (a mile and a quarter), the commander- 
in-chiefs head-quarters, the barracks, and the hospital successively, and 
as the vessel approached the landing-pier of the navy-yard one could 
hear the bustle of the military and the hammers of the artificers, and 
descr}' the crimson and blue trappings of Zouaves, recalling Crimean 
reminiscences. A train of heavy tumbrils, drawn by three or four pairs 
of mules, was the first indication of a transport system in the army of 
the Confederate States, and the high-bred chargers mounted by the 
escorts of these ammunition wagons corroborated the accounts of the 
wealth and breeding of its volunteer cavalry. The Diana now skirted 
the navy -yard, the neat dwellings of which, and the profusion of orange 
and fig groves in which they are embosomed, have an aspect of tropical 
shade and repose, much at variance with the stern preparations before 
us. Our skipper let go his anchor at a respectful distance from the 
quay, evincing a regard for martial law that contrasted strangely with 
the impatience of control elsew-here manifested throughout this land, 
and almost inspiring the belief that no other rule can ever restore the 
lost bump of veneration to American craniology. 

While the master of the Diana was skulling his leaky punt ashore to 



44 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

convey my letters of introduction to the commander-in-cliief, I had 
leisure to survey the long, narrow, low sand-belt of the island opposite, 
which loses itself in the distance, and disappears in the ocean forty-seven 
miles from Fort Pickens. It is so nearly level with the sea that I could 
make out the mainyards of the Sabine and the Brooklyn, anchored out- 
side the island within range of the navy-yard, which is destined to receive 
immediate attention whenever the attack shall begin. Pursuing my re- 
flections upon the morale of the upper and nether millstones between 
which the Diana is moored, I am sadly puzzled by the anomalous ethics 
or metaphysics of this singular war, the preparations for which vary so 
essentially — it were sin to say ludicrously — from all ancient and modern 
belligerent usages. Here we have an important fortress, threatened 
with siege for the last sixty days, suifering the assailants of the flag it 
defends to amass battery upon battery, and string the whole coast of 
low hills opposite with every variety of apparatus for its own devasta- 
tion, without throwing a timely shell to prevent their establishment. 

War has been virtually declared, since letters of marque and a corre- 
sponding blockade admit of no other interpretation, and yet but last 
week two Mobile steamers, laden with £50,000 worth of provisions for 
the beleaguering camp, were stopped by the blockading fleet, and, 
though not permitted to enter this harboi-, were allowed to return to 
Mobile untouched, the commander thinking it quite punishment enough 
for the rebels to thus compel them to return to Mobile, and carry up 
the Alabama river to Montgomery this mass of eatables, which would 
have to be dispatched thence by rail to this place ! Such practical 
jokes lend a tinge of innocence to the premonitories of this strife which 
will hardly survive the first bloodshed. 

The skipper returned from shore with an orderly, who brought the 
needful permission to haul the Diana alongside the wdiarf, where I 
landed, and was conducted by an aid of the quartermaster-general 
through the shady streets of this graceful little village, whicli covers an 
enclosure of 300 acres, and, with the adjoining forts, cost the United 
States over £6,000,000 sterling, which may have something to do with 
the President's determination to hold a property under so heavy an 
hypothecation. Irish landlords, with encumbered estates, have no such 
simple mode of obtaining an acquittal. 

The navy-yard is, pi-operly speaking, a settlement of exceedingly 
neat detached houses, with gardens in front, porticoes, pillars, verandahs, 
and Venetian blinds to aid the dense trees in keeping off the scorching 
rays of the sun, which is intensely powerful in the summer, and is now 
blazing so fiercely as to force one to admit the assertion that the average 
temperature is as high as that of Calcutta to be very probable. The 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 45 

grass-plots under these trees are covered with neat piles of cannon- 
balls, mostly of small size; two obsolete mortars — one dated 1776 — are 
placed in the main avenue. Tents are pitched under the trees, and the 
housed are all occupied by officers, who are chatting, smoking, and 
drinking at the open windows. A number of men in semi-military 
dresses of various sorts and side-arms are lounging about the quays and 
the lawns before the houses. Into one of these 1 am escorted, and find 
myself at a very pleasant mess, of whom the greater number are officers 
of the Zouave corps, from New Orleans — one, a Dane, has served at 
Idstedt, Kiel, Frederichstadt ; another foreigner has seen service in 
South America ; another has fought in half the insurrectionary wars in 
Europe. The wine is abundant, the fare good, the laughter and talk 
loud. Mr. Davis has been down all day from Montgomery, accom- 
panied by Mrs. Davis, Mr. Maloney, and Mr. Wigfall, and they all think 
his presence means immediate action. 

The only ship here is the shell of the old Fulton, which is on the 
stocks, but the works of the navy-yard are useful in casting shot, shell, 
and preparing munitions of wai*. An aide-de-camp from General Bragg 
entered as we were sitting at table, and invited me to attend him to the 
general's quarters. The road, as I found, was very long and very dis- 
agreeable, owing to the depth of the sand, into which the foot sank at 
every step up to the ankle. Passing the front of an extended row of 
the clean, airy, pretty villas inside the navy-yard, we passed the gate 
on exhibiting our passes, and proceeded by the sea-beach, one side of 
which is lined with houses, a few yards from the surf. These houses 
are all occupied by troops, or are used as bar-rooms or magazines. At 
inter\als a few guns have been placed along the beach, covered by sand- 
bags, parapets, and traverses. As we toiled along in the sand the aide 
hailed a cart, pressed it into the service, and we continued our journey 
less painfully. Suddenly a tall, straight-backed man in a blue frock- 
coat, with a star on the epaulette strap, a smart kepi, and trowsers with 
gold stripe, and large brass spurs, rode past on a high-stepping power- 
ful charger, followed by an orderly. " There is General Bragg," said 
his aide. The general turned round, reined up, and I was presented as 
I sat in my state chariot. The commander of the Confederated States 
army at Pensacola is about forty-two years of age, of a spare and powerful 
frame; his face is dark, and marked with deep lines, his mouth large, 
and squarely set in determined jaws, and his eyes, sagacious, penetrat- 
ing, and not by any means unkindly, look out at you from beetle brows 
which run straight across and spring into a thick tuft of black hair, 
which is thickest over the nose, where naturally it usually leaves an 
intervening space. His hair is dark, and he wears such regulation 



46 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

whiskers as were the delight of our generals a few years ago. His 
iiiaiiner is quick aud frank, and his smile is very pleasing and agreeable. 
The general would not hear of my continuing my journey to his quar- 
ters in a cart, and his orderly brought up an ambulance, drawn by a 
smart pair of mules, in which I completed it satisftictorily. 

The end of the journey through the sandy plain was at hand, for in 
an enclosure of a high, wall there stood a well-shaded mansion, amid 

o 

trees of live-oak and sycamore, with sentries at the gate and horses held 
by orderlies under the portico. General Bragg received me at the top 
of the steps which lead to the verandah, and, after a few earnest and 
complimentary words, conducted me to his office, where he spoke of 
the contest in which he was to play so important a part in terms of 
unaffected earnestness. Why else had he left his estates? After the 
Mexican war he had retired from the United States artillery; but 
when his state was menaced he was obliged to defeat her. He was 
satisfied the North meant nothing but subjugation. All he wanted was 
peace. Slavery was an institution for which he was not responsible ; 
but his property was guaranteed to him by law, and it consisted of 
slaves. AVhy did the enemy take off slaves from Tortugas to work for 
them at Pickens ? Because whites could not do their work. It was 
quite impossible to deny his earnestness, sincerity, and zeal as he spoke, 
and one could only wonder at the difference made by the " stand- 
point" from which the question is reviewed. General Bragg finally, 
before we supped, took down his plans and showed me the position of 
every gun in his works and all his batteries. He showed the greatest 
clearness of unreserved openness in his communications, and was anxious 
to point out that he had much greater difficulties to contend with than 
General Beauregard had at Charleston. The inside of Pickens is well- 
known to him, as he was stationed there the very first tour of duty 
which he had after he left West Point. It was late at night when I 
returned on one of the general's horses toward the navy-yard. The 
orderly who accompanied me was, he said, a Mississippi planter, but he 
had left his wife and family to the care of the negroes, had turned up 
all his cotton land and rej)lanted it with corn, and had come off to the 
wars. Once only were we challenged, and I was only required to show 
my pass as I was getting on board the schooner. Before I left General 
Bragg he was good enough to say he would send down one of his aides- 
de-camp and horses early in the morning, to give me a look at the 
works. 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 4/ 

Mobile, May 16, 1S61. 
Our little schooner lay quietly at the wharf all night, but no one was 
allowed to come on board without a pass, for these wild-looking sen- 
tries are excellent men of business, and look after the practical part of 
soldiering with all the keenness which their direct personal interest 
imparts to their notions of duty. The enemy is to them the incarna- 
tion of all evil, and they hunt his spies and servants very much as a 
terrier chases a rat — with intense traditional and race animosity. The 
silence of the night is not broken by many challenges or the " All's 
well !" of patrols, but there is warlike significance enough in the sound 
of the shot which working parties are rolling over the wooden jetty 
with a dull, ponderous thumping on board the flats that are to carry 
them off for the food and nourriture of the batteries. With the early 
morning, however, came the usual signs of martial existence. I started 
up from among my cockroaches, knocked my head against the fine 
pine beams over my hammock, and then, considerably obfuscated by 
the result, proceeded to investigate all the grounds that presented them- 
selves to me as worthy of consideration in reference to the theory 
which had suddenly forced itself upon my mind that I was in the 
Crimea. For close at hand, through the sleepy organ of the only sense 
which was fully awake, came the well known reveille of the Zouaves, 
and then French clangors, rolls, ruffles and calls ran along the line, 
and the volunteers got up, or did not, as seemed best to them. An 
ebony and aged Ganymede, however, appeared with coffee, and told 
me "the cap'n wants ask weder you take some bitters, sar ;" and, in- 
deed, " the captain" did compound some amazing preparation for the 
judges and colonels present on deck and below that met the approval 
of them all, and was recommending it for its fortifying qualities in 
makino- a redan and Malakoft' of the stomach. Breakfast came in due 

o 

time — not much Persic apparatus to excite the hate of the simple- 
minded, but a great deal of substantial matter, in the shape of fried 
onions, ham, eggs, biscuit, with accompaniments of iced-water, Bor- 
deaux and coffee. Our guests were two — a broad farmer-like gentle- 
man, weighing some sixteen stone, dressed in a green frieze tunic, with 
gold lace and red and scarlet worsted facings, and a felt wide-a-wake, 
who, as he wiped his manly brow, informed me he was a " rifleman." 
We have some volunteers quite as corpulent, and not more patriotic, 
for our farmer was a man of many bales, and in becoming an oflncer in 
his company of braves, had given an unmistakable proof of his devotion 
to his distant home and property. The other, a quiet, modest, intelli- 
gent-looking young man, was an ofiicer in a diflerent battalion, and 
talked with sense about a matter with which sense has seldom anv 



48 PICTURES OP SOTJTHERN LIFE. 

thing to do — I mean uniform. He remarked that in a serious action 
and a close fighting, or in night work, it would be very difficult to pre- 
vent serious mistakes, and even disasters, owing to the officers of the 
Confederate States troop swearing the same distinguishing marks of 
rank and similar uniforms, Avhenever they can get them, to those used 
in the regular service of the United States, and that much inconvenience 
will inevitably result from the great variety and wonderful diversity of 
the dresses of the immense number of companies forming the different 
regiments of volunteers. The only troops near us which were attired 
with a military exactness, were the regiment of Zouaves, from New 
Orleans. Most of these are Frenchmen or Creoles ; some have belonged 
to the battalions which the Crimea first made famous, and were present 
before Sebastopol, and in Italy ; the rest are Germans and Irish. Our 
friends went oft' to see them drill, but, as a believer in the enchanting 
power of distance, I preferred to look on at such of the manoeuvres as 
could be seen from the deck. These Zouaves look exceedingly like 
the real article. They are, perhaps, a trifle leaner and taller, and are 
not so well developed at the back of the head, the heels and the ankles 
as their prototypes. They are dressed in the same way, except that I 
saw no turban on the fez cap. The jacket, the cummerbund, the baggy 
red breeches and the gaiters are all copies of the original. They are 
all armed with rifle musket and sword-bayonet, and their pay is at the 
usual rate of $11, or something like £2 6s. a month, with rations and 
allowances. The officers do their best to be the true " chacal." I was 
more interested, I confess, in watching the motions of vast shoals of 
mullet and other fish, which flew here and there, like flocks of plover, 
before the red-fish and other enemies, and darted under our boat, than 
in examining Zouave drill. Once, as a large fish came gamboling along 
the surfiice close at hand, a great gleam of white shot up in the waves 
beneath, and a boiling whirl, marked with a crimson pool, which grad- 
ually melted off in the tide, showed where a monster shark had taken 
down a part of his breakfast. " That's a ground sheark," quoth the 
skipper ; " there's quite a many of them about here." Porpoises passed 
by in a great hurry for Pensacola, and now and then a turtle showed 
his dear little head above the enviable fluid which he honored with his 
presence. Far away in the long stretch of water toward Pensacola are 
six British merchantmen in a state of blockade — that is, they have 
only fifteen days to clear out, according to the reading of the law 
adopted by the United States officers. The navy-yard looks clean and 
neat in the early morning, and away on the other side of the channel 
Fort Pickens — teterrima causa — raises its dark front from the white 
sand and green sward of the glacis, on which a number of black objects 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 49 

invite inspection through a telescope, and obligingly resolve themselvc.-i 
into horses turned out to graze on the slope. Fort M'Rae, at the other 
side of the channel, as if to irritate its neighbor, flings out a flag to the 
breeze, which is the counterpart of the " stars and stripes" that wave 
from the rival flagstaff, and is, at this distance, identical to the eye, 
until the glass detects the solitary star in its folds instead of the whole 
galaxy. On the dazzling snowy margin of sand that separates the 
trees and brushwood from the sea close at hand, the outline of the bat- 
teries which stud the shore for miles is visible. Let us go and make a 
close inspection. Mr. Ellis, lieutenant in the Louisiana regiment, who is 
aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Bragg, has just arrived with a mes- 
sage from his chief to escort me round all the works, and wherever else 
I like to go, without any reservation whatever. He is a handsome, well- 
built, slight young fellow, very composed and staid in manner, but full 
of sentiment for the South. Returned from a tour in Europe, he is all 
admiration for English scenery, life and habits. " After all, nature has 
been more bountiful to you than to us." He is dressed in a tight 
undress cavalry -jacket and trousers of blue flannel, with plain gold-lace 
pipings and buttons, but on his heels are heavy brass spurs, worthy of 
the heaviest of field officers. Our horses are standing in the shade of 
a large tree near the wharf, and mine is equipped with a saddle of pon- 
derous brass-work, on raised pummel, and cantle, and housings, and 
emblazoned cloth, and mighty stirrups of brass, fit for the stoutest 
marshal that ever led an army of France to victory ; General Braxton 
Bragg is longer in the leg than Marshal Pelissier, or Canrobert, or the 
writer, and as we jogged along over the deep, hot sand, my kind com- 
panion, in spite of my assurances that the leathers were quite comfort- 
able, made himself and me somewhat uneasy on the score of their 
adjustment, and, as there was no implement at hand to make a hole, 
we turned into the general's courtyard to effect the necessary altera- 
tions. The cry of '- Orderly" brought a smart, soldierly-looking young 
man to the front, who speedily took me three holes up, and as I was 
going away he touched his cap and said : " I beg your pardon, sir, but 
I often saw you in the Crimea." His story as he told it was brief. 
He had been in the Eleventh Hussars, and on the 25th of October he 
was following, as he said, close after Lord Cardigan and Captain Nolan 
when his horse was killed under him. As he tried to make his escape 
the Cossacks took him prisoner, and for eleven months he was in cap- 
tivity, but was exchanged at Odessa. " Why did you leave the ser- 
vice ?" " Well, sir, I was one of the two sergeants that were permitted 
to leave in each regiment on the close of the war, and I came away." 
" But here you are soldiering again ?" " Yes, sir. I came over here 
3 



50 nCTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

to better myself, as I thought, and I had to enter one of their cavalry 
l-egiments, but now I am an orderly." He told me further, that his 
name was Montague, and that he " thought his father lived near Wind- 
sor, twenty-one miles from London;" and I was pleased to find his 
superior oflacers spoke of him in very high terms, although I could 
have wished those who spoke so were in our own service. 

I do not think that any number of words can give a good idea of a 
long line of detached batteries I went through them all, and I cer- 
tainly found stronger reasons than ever for distrusting the extraordinary 
statements which appear in the American journals in reference to mili- 
tary matters, particularly on their own side of the question. Instead 
of hundreds of guns, there are only ten. They are mostly of small 
calibre, and the gun-carriages are old and unsound, or new and rudely 
made. There are only five "heavy" guns in all the works; but the 
mortar batteries, three in number, of which one is unfinished, will prove 
very damaging, although they will only contain nine or ten mortars. 
The batteries are all sand-bag and earthworks, with the exception of 
Fort Barrancas. They are made after all sorts of ways, and are of very 
different degrees of efficiency. In some the magazines will come to 
speedy destruction ; in others they are well made. Some are of the 
finest white sand, and will blind the gunners, or be blown away with 
shells ; others are cramped, and hardly traversed ; others, again, are 
very spacious and well constructed. The embrasures are usually made 
of sand-bags, covered with raw hides to save the cotton-bags from the 
effect of the fire of their own guns. I was amused to observe that 
most of these works had galleries in the rear, generally in connection 
with the magazine passages, which the constructors called "rat-holes," 
and which are intended as shelter to the men at the guns in case of 
shells falling inside the battery. They may prove to have a very dif- 
ferent result, and are certainly not so desirable in a military point of 
view as good traverses. A rush for the "rat-hole" will not be very 
dignified or improving to the morale every time a bomb hurtles over 
them ; and assuredly the damage to the magazines will be enormous 
if the fire from Pickens is accurate and well sustained. Several of the 
batteries were not finished, and the men w^ho ought to have been work- 
ing were lying under the shade of trees, sleeping or smoking — long- 
limbed, long-bearded fellows in flannel shirts and slouched hats, uni- 
formless in all, save bright well-kept arms and resolute purpose. We 
went along slowly, from one battery to the other. I visited nine alto- 
gether, not including Fort Barrancas, and there are three others, among 
which is Fort M'Rae. Perhaps there may be fifty guns of all sorts in 
• position for about three miles, along a line extending 135 degrees 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 51 

round Fort Pickens, the average distance being about one and one-third 
miles. The mortar batteries are well placed among brushwood, quite 
out of view of the fort, at distances varying from 2,500 to 2,800 yards, 
and the mortars are generally of calibres corresponding nearly with our 
ten-inch pieces. Several of the gun batteries are put on the level of 
the beach ; others have more command, and one is particularly well 
placed, close to the White Lighthouse, on a high plateau which domi- 
nates the sandy strip that runs out to Fort M'Rae. Of the latter I 
have already spoken. Fort Barrancas is an old fort — I believe of 
Spanish construction, with a very meagre trace — a plain curtain-face 
toward the sea, protected by a dry ditch and an outwork, in which, 
however, there are no guns. There is a drawbridge in the rear of the 
work, which is a simple parallelogram showing twelve guns mounted 
en barbette on the sea-face. The walls are of brick, and the guns are 
protected by thick merlons of sand-bags. The sole advantage of the 
fort is in its position ; it almost looks down into the casemates of 
Pickens opposite at its weakest point, and it has a fair command of 
the sea entrance, but the guns are weak, and there are only three pieces 
mounted which can do much mischief. While I was looking round, 
there was an entertaining dispute going on between two men, whom I 
believe to have been officers, as to the work to be done, and I heard 
the inferior intimate pretty broadly his conviction that his chief did 
not know his own business in reference to some orders he was con- 
veying. 

The amount of ammunition which I saw did not appear to me to be 
at all sufficient for one day's moderate firing, and many of the shot 
were roughly cast and had deep flanges from the moulds in their sides, 
and very destructive to the guns as well as to accuracy. In the rear 
of these batteries, among the pine woods and in deep brush, are three 
irregular camps, which, to the best of my belief, could not contain 
more than 2,700 men. There are probably 3,000 in and about the 
batteries, the navy-yard and the suburbs, and there are, also, I am 
informed, 1,500 at Pensacola, but I doubt exceedingly that there are 
as many as 8,000 men, all told, of etifective strength under the com- 
mand of General Bragg. It would be a mistake to despise these irregu- 
lars. One of the Mississippi regiments out in camp was evidently com- 
posed of men who liked campaigning, and who looked as though they 
would like fighting. They had no particular uniforms — the remark 
will often be made — but they had pugnacious physiognomies and the 
physical means of carrying their inclinations into effect, and every man 
of them was, I am informed, familiar with the use of arms. Their tents 
are mostly small and bad, on the ridge-pole pattern, with side flys to 



52 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

keep off the sun. In some battalions they observe regularity of line, 
in others they follow individual or company caprice. The men use 
green boughs and bowers, as our poor fellows did in the old hot days 
in Bulgaria, and many of them had benches and seats before their 
doors, and the luxury of boarded floors to sleep upon. There is an 
embarrassing custom in America, scarcely justifiable in any code of 
good manners, which, in the South at least, is only too common, and 
which may be still more general in the North ; at all events, to a 
stranger it is productive of the annoyance which is experienced by one 
who is obliged to inquire whether the behavior of those among whom 
he is at the time, is intentional rudeness or conventional want of breed- 
ing. For instance, my friend and myself, as we are riding along, see 
a gentleman standing near his battery, or his tent — "Good morrow, 
colonel," or "general" (as the case may be), says my friend — "Good 
morrow (imagining military rank according to the notion possessed by 
speaker of the importance of the position of a general's A. D. C), Ellis." 
" Colonel, etc., allow me to introduce to you Mr. Jones, of London." 
The colonel advances with effusion, holds out his hand, grasps Jones's 
hand rigidly, and says, warmly, as if he had just gained a particular 
object of his existence : " Mr. Jones, I'm very glad to make your 
acquaintance, sir. Have you been pretty well since you have been in 
our country, sir ?" etc. But it is most likely that the colonel will just 
walk away when he pleases, without saying a word to, or taking the 
least notice of, the aforesaid Jones, as to whose acquaintance he had 
just before expressed such friendly feelings, and in whose personal 
health he had taken so deep an interest ; and Jones, till he is accus- 
tomed to it, feels affronted. The fact is, that the introduction means 
nothing ; you are merely told each other's names, and if you like, you 
may improve your acquaintance. The hand-shaking is a remnant of 
barbarous times, when men with the same colored skin were glad to 
see each other. 

The country through which we rode was most uninteresting, thick 
brushwood and pine-trees springing out of deep sand, here and there 
a nullah and some dirty stream — all flat as ditchwater. On our return 
we halted at the general's quarters. I had left a note for him, in which 
I inquired whether he would have any objection to my proceeding to 
Fort Pickens from his command, in case I obtained permission to do 
so, and when I entered General Bragg's room he was engaged in 
writing not merely a very courteous and complimentary expression of 
his acquiescence in my visit, but letters of introduction to personal 
friends in Louisiana, in the hope of rendering my sojourn more agree- 
able. He expressed a doubt whether my comrades would be permitted 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 53 

to enter tlie fort, and talked very freely -with me in reference to what 
I had seen at the batteries, but I thought I perceived an indication of 
some change of purpose with respect to the immediate urgency of the 
attack on Fort Pickens compared with his expressions last night. At 
length I departed, with many thanks to General Bragg for his kindness 
and confidence, and returned to a room full of generals and colonels, 
who made a levee of their visits. 

On my return to the schooner, I observed that the small houses on 
the side of the long sandy beach were filled with men, many of whom 
were in groups round the happy possessors of a newspaper, and listened 
with the utmost interest to the excited delivery of the oracular sen- 
tences. II ow much of the agony and bitterness of this conflict — nay, 
how much of its existence — may be due to these same newspapers, no 
man can say, but I have very decided opinions, or rather a very strong 
belief, on the subject. There were still more people around the various 
bar-rooms than were attracted even by the journalists. Two of our 
companions were on board when I got back to the quay. The Mobile 
gentlemen had gone off to Pensacola, and had not returned to time, 
and under any circumstances it was not probable that they would be 
permitted to land, as undoubtedly they were no friends to the garrison, 
or to the cause of the United States. Our skipper opened his eyes 
and shook his rough head a little when he was ordered to get under 
way for Fort Pickens, and to anchor off the jetty. Up went the flag 
of truce to the fore once more, but the ever- watchful sentry, diverted 
for the time from his superintendence of the men who were fishing at 
our pier, forbade our departure till the corporal of the guard had given 
leave, and the corporal of the guard would not let the fair Diana cast 
off her warp till he had consulted the sergeant of the guard, and so 
there w^as some delay occasioned by the necessity for holding an inter- 
view with that functionary, who finally permitted the captain to pro- 
ceed on his way, and with a fair light breeze the schooner fell round 
into the tide-way and glided off toward the fort. We drew up with it 
rapidly, and soon attracted the notice of the look-out men and some 
officers who came down to the jetty. 

We anchored a cable's length from the jetty. In reply to the sen- 
try's hail, the skipper asked for a boat to put off for us. " Come off 
in your own boat." Skiff of Charon ! But there was no choice. 
With all the bathos of that remarkable structure it could not go down 
in such a short row. And if it did ? Well, " there's not a more ter- 
rible place for sharks along this coast," the captain had told us inci- 
dentally en route. Our own boat was inclined to impartiality in its 
relations with the w^ater, and took quite as much inside as it could 



54 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

hold, but we soused into it, and the men pulled like Doggett's Badgers, 
and soon we Avere out of shark depth and alongside the jetty, where 
Avere standing to receive us Mr. Brown, our friend of yesterday, Cap- 
tain Vodges, and Captain Berry, commanding a United States battery 
inside the fort. The soldiers of the guard Avere United States regular 
troops of the artillery, wore blue uniforms with brass buttons, and 
remarkably ugly slouched felt hats, Avith an ornament in the shape of 
two crossed cannon. Captain Yodges informed me that Colonel Moore 
had sent off a reply to my letter to the fleet, stating that he Avould 
gladly permit me to go OA^er the fort, but that he could not allow any 
one else, under any circumstances Avhatever, to A'isit it. My friends 
Avere therefore constrained to stay outside, but one of them picked up 
a friend on the beach and got up an impromptu ride along the island. 
The Avay from the jetty to the entrance of the fort is in the universal 
deep sand of this part of the Avorld ; the distance from the landing- 
place to the gatcAvay is not much more than tAvo hundred yards, and 
the approach to the portal is quite unprotected. There is a high ramp 
and glacis on the land side, but the face and part of the curtain in 
Avhich the gate is situate are open, as it Avas not considered likely that 
it Avould ever be attacked by Americans. The sharp angle of the bas- 
tion on this face is so weak that men are noAv engaged in throAving up 
an extempore glacis to cover the base of the Avail and "the casemates 
from fire. The ditch is very broad, and the scarp and counterscarp 
are riveted Avith brickAvork. The curvette has been cleared out, and 
in doing so, as a proof of the agreeable character of the locality, I 
may observe upAvards of sixty rattlesnakes were killed by the workmen. 
An abattis has been made along the edge of this part of the ditch — a 
rough inclined fence of stakes and boughs of trees. " Yes, sir ; at one 
time when those terrible fire-eating gentlemen at the other side Avere 
full of threats, and coming to take the place every day, there Avere only 
seventy men in this fort, and Lieutenant Slemmer threw up this abattis 
to delay his assailants, if it were only for a few minutes, and to give his 
men breathing time to use their small arms." The casemates here are 
all blinded, and the hospital is situate in the bomb-proofs inside. The 
gate Avas closed ; at a talismanic knock it Avas opened, and from the 
external silence Ave passed into a scene full of activity and life, through 
the dark gallery Avhich served at first as a framcAvork to the picture. 
The parade of the fort Avas full of men, and as a couj) cTceil^ it Avas 
obvious that great efforts had been made to prepare Fort Pickens for a 
desperate defence. In the parade Avere several tents of Avhat is called 
Sibley's pattern, like our bell tents, but Avithout the loAver side-wall, 
and provided with a ventilating top, which can be elevated or depressed 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 55 

at pleasure. The parade-ground has been judiciously filled with deep 
holes, like inverted cones, in which shells will be comparatively innocu- 
ous ; and warned by Sumter, every thing has been removed which could 
prove in the least degree combustible. The officer on duty led me 
straight across to the opposite angle of the fort. As the rear of the 
casemates and bomb-proofs along this side will be exposed to a plung- 
ing fire from the opposite side, a very ingenious screen has been con- 
structed, by placing useless gun-platforms and parts of carriages at an 
angle against the wall, and piling them up wdth sand and earth for 
several feet in thickness. A passage is thus left between the base of 
the wall and that of the screen, throuirh which a man can walk wdth 
ease. Turning into this passage, we entered a lofty bomb-proof, which 
was the bedroom of the commanding officer, and passed through into 
the casemate which serves as his head-quarters. Colonel Harvey Brown 
received me with every expression of politeness and courtesy. He is 
a tall, spare, soldierly-looking man, with a face indicative of great reso- 
lution and energy, as well as of sagacity and kindness ; and his attach- 
ment to the Union was probably one of the reasons of his removal from 
the command of Fort Hamilton, New York, to the charge of this very 
important fort. He has been long in the service, and he belonged to 
the first class of graduates who passed at West Point after its establish- 
ment in 1818. After a short and very interesting conversation, he 
proceeded to show me the works, and we mounted upon the parapet, 
accompanied by Captain Berry, and went over all the defences. Fort 
Pickens has a regular bastioned trace, in outline an oblique and rather 
narrow parallelogram, with the obtuse angles facing the sea at one side 
and the land at the other. The acute angle at which the bastion 
toward the enemy's batteries is situate, is the weakest part of the w^ork ; 
but it was built for sea defence, as I have already observed, and the 
trace was prolonged to obtain the greatest amount of fire on the sea 
approaches. The crest of the parapet is covered wdth very solid and 
well-made merlons of heavy sand-bags, but one face and the gorge of 
the bastion are exposed to an enfilading fire from Fort M'Rae, which 
the colonel said he intended to guard against if he got. time. All the 
guns seemed in good order, the carriages being well constructed, but 
they are mostly of what are considered small calibres now-a-days, being 
32-pounders, wdth some 42-pounders and 24-pounders. There are, 
however, four heavy columbiads, wdiich command the enemy's works 
on several points very completely. It struck me that the bastion guns 
were rather crowded. But, even in its present state, the defensive 
preparations are most creditable to the officers, who have had only 
three wrecks to do the immense amount of work before us. The brick 



56 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

copings have been removed from the parapets, and strong sand-bag 
traverses have been constructed to cover the gunners, in addition to 
the "rat-holes" at the bastions. More heavy guns are expected, which, 
with the aid of a few more mortars, will enable the garrison to hold 
their own against every thing but a regular siege on the land side, and 
so long as the fleet covers the narrow neck of the island with its guns, 
it is not possible for the Confederates to effect a lodgment. If Fort 
M'Rae was strong and heavily armed, it could inflict great damage on 
Pickens ; but it is neither one nor the other, and the United States 
officers are confident that they will speedily render it quite untenable. 
The houches a feu of the fort may be put down at forty, including the 
available pieces in the casemates, which sweep the ditch and the faces 
of the curtains. The walls are of the hardest brick, of nine feet thick- 
ness in many places, and the crest of the parapets on which the merlons 
and traverses rest are of turf. From the walls there is a splendid view 
of the whole position, and I found my companions were perfectly well 
acquainted with the strength and locus of the greater part of the ene- 
my's works. Of course I held my peace, but I was amused at their 
accuracy. " There are the quarters of our friend. General Bragg." 
" There is one of their best batteries just beside the lighthouse." The 
tall chimney of the Warrington navy-yard was smoking away lustily. 
The colonel called my attention to it. "Do you see that, sir? They 
are casting shot, there. The sole reason for their ' forbearance,' is that 
navy-yard. They know full well that if they open a gun upon us, we 
^vill lay that yard and all the work in ruins." 

Captain Yodges subsequently expressed some uneasiness on a point 
as to which I could have relieved his mind very effectually. He had 
seen something which led him to apprehend that the Confederates 
had a strong intrenched camp in rear of their works. Thereupon I 
was enabled to perceive that in Captain Vodges' mind, there Avas a 
strong intention to land and carry the enemy's position. Why, other- 
wise, did you care about an intrenched camp, most excellent engineer ? 
But now I may tell you that there is no intrenched camp at all, and 
that your vigilant eye, sir, merely detected certain very absurd little 
furrows which the Confederates have in some places thrown up in the 
soft sand in front of their camps, which would cover a man up to the 
knee or stomach, and are quite useless as a breastwork. If they thought 
a landing probable, it is unpardonable in them to neglect such a pro- 
tection. These furrows are quite straight, and even if they are deep- 
ened the assailants have merely to march round them, as they extend 
for only some forty or fifty yards, and have no flanks. The officers of 
the garrison arc aware the enemy have mortar batteries, but they think 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 57 

tlie inside of tlie fort will not be easily hit, and they said nothing to 
show that they were acquainted with the position of the mortars. 

From the parapet we descended by a staircase into the casement, 
The Confederates are greatly deceived in their expectation that the 
United States soldiers will be much exposed to sun or heat in Pickens. 
More airy, well ventilated quarters cannot be imagined, and there is 
quite light enough to enable the men to read in most of them. The 
plague of flies will infest both armies, and is the curse of every camp 
in the summer. As to mosquitos, the Confederates will probably 
suffer, if not more, at least as much as the States troops. The effect 
of other tormentors, such as yellow fever and dysentery, will be in all 
probability impartially felt on both sides ; but, unless the position of 
the fort is peculiarly unhealthy, the men who are under no control in 
respect to their libations, will probably suflfer more than those who are 
restrained by discipline and restricted to a regular allowance. Water 
can always be had by digging, and is fit for use if drunk immediately. 
Vegetables and fresh provisions, are not, of course, so easily had as on 
shore, but there is a scarcity of them in both camps, and the supplies 
from the store-ships are very good and certain. The bread baked by 
the garrison is excellent, as I had an opportunity of ascertaining, for I 
carried oft' two loaves from the bakehouse on board the schooner. Our 
walk through the casemates was very interesting. They were crowded 
with men, most of whom were reading. They were quiet, orderly- 
looking soldiers — a mixture of old and young — scarcely equal in 
stature to their opponents, but more to be depended upon I should 
think in a long struggle. Every thing seemed well arranged. Those 
men who were in their beds had mosquito curtains drawn, and were 
reading or sleeping at their ease. In the casemate used as an hospital 
there were only some twelve men sick out of the whole garrison, and I 
was much struck by the absence of any foul smell and by the cleanli- 
ness and neatness of all the arrangements. The colonel spoke to each 
of the men kindly, and they appeared glad to see him. The dispen- 
sary was as neat as care and elbow-grease could make it, and next door 
to it, in strange juxtaposition, was the laboratory for the manufactory 
of fuses and deadly implements, in equally good order. Every thing 
is ready for immediate service. I am inclined to think it will be some 
time before it is wanted. Assuredly, if the enemy attack Fort Pickens 
they will meet with a resistance which will probably end in the entire 
destruction of the navy -yard, and of the greater part of their w^orks. 
A week's delay will enable Colonel Brown to make good some grave 
defects ; but delay is of more advantage to his enemy than it is to 
him, and if Fort Pickens were made at once the point cfappui for a 
3* 



58 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

vigorous offensive movement by tlie fleet and by a land force, I have 
very little doubt in my mind that Pensacola must fell, and that Gen- 
eral Bragg would be obliged to retrie. In a few weeks the attitude of 
affairs may be very different. The railroad is open to General Bragg, 
and he can place himself in a very much stronger attitude than he now 
occupies. 

At last the time came for me to leave. The colonel and Captain 
Berry came down to the beach with me. Outside we found Captain 
Vodges kindly keeping my friends in conversation and in liquid sup- 
plies in the shade of the bakehouse shed, and, after a little more pleas- 
ant conversation, we were afloat once more. Probably no living man 
w^as ever permitted to visit the camps of two enemies within sight of 
each other before this, under similar circumstances, for I was neither 
spy nor herald, and I owe my best thanks to those who trusted me on 
both sides so freely and so honorably. A gentleman wdio preceded me 
did not fare quite so well. He landed on the island and went up to 
the fort, where he represented himself to be the correspondent of an 
American journal. But his account of himself was not deemed satis- 
factory. He was sent off to the fleet. Presently there came over a 
flag of truce from General Bragg, wdth a warrant signed by a justice 
of the peace, for the correspondent, on a charge of felony ; but the 
writ did not run in Fort Pickens. The officers regarded the message 
as a clever ruse to get back a spy, and the correspondent is still in 
durance vile or in safety, as the case may be, on board the squadron. 

All sails filled, the Diana stood up toward the navy-yard once 
more in the glare of the setting sun. The sentinels along the battery 
and beach glared at us with surprise as the schooner, with her flag of 
truce still flying, ran past them. The pier was swept with the glass 
for the Mobile gentlemen ; they were not visible. " Halloa ! Mr. Cap- 
tain, what's that you're at ?" His mate was waving the Confederate 
flag from the deck — "Its only the signal, sir, to the gentlemen on 
shore." "Wave some other flag, then, while there's a flag of truce 
flying, and wdiile we are in these, waters." After backing and filling 
for some time the party were descried in the distance. Again, the 
watery skiff was sent off, and in a few minutes they were permitted, 
thanks to their passes, to come oft". Some confidential person had in- 
formed them the attack w^as certainly coming off in a very short time. 
They w^ere anxious to stay. They had seen friends at Pensacola, and 
were full of praises of " the quaint old Spanish settlement," but mine 
is, unfortunately, not an excursion of pleasure, and it was imperative 
that I should not waste time. Every thing had been seen that was 
necessary for my purpose. It was beyond my power to state the rea- 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 59 

sons whicli led me to think no fight would take place, for doing so 
would have been to betray confidence. And so we parted company — 
they to feast their eyes on a bombardment — and if they only are near 
enough to see it they will heartily regret their curiosity, or I am mis- 
taken — and we to return to Mobile. 

It was dark before the Diana Avas well down off Fort Pickens aorain, 
and, as she passed out to sea between it and Fort M'Rae, it was cer- 
tainly to have been expected that one side or other would bring her 
to. Certainly our friend Mr. Brown in his clipper Oriental would 
overhaul us outside, and there lay a friendly bottle in a nest of ice 
waiting for the gallant sailor who was to take farewell of us according 
to promise. Out we glided into night and into the cool sea breeze, 
which blew fresh and strong from the north. In the distance the 
black form of the Powhatan could be just distinguished ; the rest of 
the squadron could not be made out by either eye or glass, nor was 
the schooner in sight. A lantern was hoisted by my orders, and was 
kept aft for some time after the schooner was clear of the forts. Still 
no schooner. The wind was not very favorable for running toward 
the Powhatan, and it was too late to approach her with perfect confi- 
dence from the enemy's side. Besides, it was late ; time pressed. The 
Oriental was surely lying off somewhere to the westward, and the 
word was given to make sail, and soon the Diana was bowling along 
shore, where the sea melted away in a fiery line of foam so close to us 
that a man could, in nautical phrase, " shy a biscuit" on the sand. 
The wind was abeam, and the Diana seemed to breathe it through her 
sails, and flew along at an astonishing rate through the phosphorescent 
waters with a prow of flame and a bubbling wake of dancing meteor- 
like streams flowing from her helm, as though it were a furnace Avhence 
boiled a stream of liquid metal. " Xo sign of the Oriental on our lee- 
bow ?" " Nothin' at all in sight, sir." The sharks and huge rays flew 
off from the shore as we passed and darted out seaward, marking their 
runs in brilliant trails of light. On sped the Diana, but no Oriental 
came in sight. 

I was tired. The sun had been very hot ; the ride through the 
batteries, the visits to quarters, the excursion to Pickens, had found 
out my weak places, and my head was aching and legs fatigued, and 
so I thought I would turn in for a short time, and I dived into the 
shades below, where my comrades were already sleeping, and kickin;^ 
off my boots, lapsed into a state which rendered me indifferent to the 
attentions no doubt lavished upon me by the numerous little familiarrj 
who recreate in the well-peopled timbers. It never entered into my 
head, even in my dreams, that the captain would break the blockade if 



60 picrruRES of southern life. 

he could — particularly as his papers had not been indorsed, and the 
penalties would be sharp and sure if he were caught. But the confi- 
dence of coasting captains in the extraordinary capabilities of their 
craft is a madness — a hallucination so strong that no danger or risk 
will prevent their acting upon it whenever they can. I was assured 
once by the " captain" of a Billyboy, that he could run to windward 
of any frigate in Her Majesty's service, and there is not a skipper from 
Hartlepool to Whitstable who does not believe his own Mary Ann or 
Three Grandmothers is, on certain " pints," able to bump her fat bows 
and scuttle-shaped stern faster through the seas than any clipper which 
ever flew a pendant. I had been some two hours and a half asleep, 
when I was awakened by a whispering in the little cabin. Charley, 
the negro cook, ague-stricken with terror, was leaning over the bed, 
and in broken French was chattering through his teeth : " Monsieur^ 
Monsieur, nous sommes perdus ! Le hatement de guerre nous poursuit. 
U n'a pas encore tire. II va tirer hientot ! Oh, mon Dieu ! mon 
DieuV Through the hatchway I could see the skipper was at the 
helm, glancing anxiously from the compass to the quivering reef-points 
of his mainsail. " What's all this we hear, captain ?" " Well, sir, 
there's been somethin' a runnin' after us these two hours" (very 
slowly). "But I don't think he'll keech us up no how this time." 
" But, good heavens ! you know it may be the Oriental, with Mr. 
Brown on board." "Ah, wall — may bee. But he kept quite close 
up on me in the dark — it gave me quite a stark when I seen him. 
May be, says I, he's a privateerin' chap, and so I draws in on shore 
close as I cud, — gets mee centre-board in, and, says I, Fll see what 
yer med of, mee boy. He an't a gaining much on us." I looked, 
and sure enough, about half or three-quarters of a mile astern, and 
somewhat to leeward of us, a vessel, with sails and hull all blended 
into a black lump, was standing on in pursuit. I strained my eyes 
aiid furbished up the glasses, but could make out nothing definite. 
The skipper held grimly on. The shore was so close we could have 
almost leaped into the surf, for the Diana, when her centre-board is up, 
does not draw much over four feet. " Captain, I think you had better 
shake your wind, and see who he is. It may be Mr. Brown." " Mees> 
ter Brown or no I can't help carrine on now. I'd be on the bank out> 
side in a minit if I didn't hold my course." The captain had his own 
way ; he argued that if it was the Oriental she would have fired a 
blank gun long ago to bring us to ; and as to not calling us when the 
sail was discovered he took up the general line of the cruelty of dis- 
turbing people when they're asleep. Ah ! captain, you knew well it 
was Mr. Brown, as you let out when we were off Fort Morgan. By 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 61 

keeping so close in shore in shoal water the Diana was enabled to 
creep along to windward of the stranger, who evidently was deeper 
than ourselves. See there ! Her sails shiver ! so one of the crew 
says ; she's struck ! But she's off again, and is after us. We are just 
within range, and one's eyes become quite blinky, watching for the 
flash from the bow, but, whether privateer or United States schooner 
she was too magnanimous to fire. A stern chase is a long chase. It 
must now be somewhere about two in the morning. Nearer and nearer 
to shore creeps the Diana. " I'll lead him into a pretty mess, whoever 
he is, if he tries to follow me through the Swash," grins the skipper. 
The Swash is a very shallow, narrow, and dangerous passage into 
Mobile Bay, between the sand-banks on the east of the main channel 
and the shore. The Diana is now only some nine or ten miles from 
Fort Morgan, guarding the entrance to Mobile. Soon an uneasy danc- 
ing motion welcomes her approach to the Swash. " Take a cast of 
the lead, John !" " Nine feet." " Good ! Again !" " Seven feet." 
"Good — Charley, bring the lantern." (Oh, Charley, why did that 
lantern go out just as it was wanted, and not only expose us to the 
most remarkable amount of " cussin'," imprecation, and strange oaths 
our ears ever heard, but expose our lives and your head to more immi- 
nent danger ?) But so it was, just at the critical juncture when a turn 
of the helm port or starboard made the difference, perhaps, between 
life and death, light after light went out, and the captain went dancing 
mad after intervals of deadly calmness, as the mate sang out, " Five 
feet and a half ! seven feet— six feet — eight feet — five feet — four feet 
and a half — (Oh, Lord !) — six feet," and so on, through a measurement 
of death by inches, not at all agreeable. And where was Mr. Brown 
all this time ? Really, we were so much interested in the state of the 
lead-line, and in the very peculiar behavior of the lanterns which would 
not burn, that we scarcely cared much when we heard from the odd 
hand and Charley that she had put about, after running aground once 
or twice, they thought, as soon as we entered the Swash, and had van- 
ished rapidly in the darkness. It was little short of a miracle that we 
got past the elbow, for just at the critical moment, in a channel not 
more than a hundred yards broad, with pnly six feet of water, the bin- 
nacle light, which had burned steadily for a minute, sank with a sputter 
into black night. When the passage was accomplished, the captain 
relieved his mind by chasing Charley into a corner, and with a shark, 
which he held by the tail, as the first weapon that came to hand, in- 
flicting on him condign punishment, and then returning to the helm. 
Charley, however, knew Lis master, for he slyly seized the shark and 
flung his defunct corpse overboard before another fit of passion came 



G2 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

on, and by tlie morning the skipper was good friends with him, after 
he had relieved himself, by a series of castigations of the negligent 
lamplighter with every variety of Rhadamanthine implement. 

The Diana had thus distinguished her dirty little person by break- 
ing a blockade, and giving an excellent friend of ours a great deal of 
trouble (if it was, indeed Mr. Brown), as w^ell as giving us a very un- 
enviable character for want of hospitality and courtesy ; and, for both, 
I beg to apologize with this account of the transaction. But she had 
a still greater triumph. As she approached Fort Morgan, all was 
silence. The morning was just showing a gray streak in the east. 
" Why, they're all asleep at the fort," observed the indomitable cap- 
tain, and, regardless of guns or sentries, down went his helm, and away 
the Diana thumped into Mobile Bay, and stole off in the darkness 
toward the opposite shore. There w^as, however, a miserable day be- 
fore us. When the light fairly broke we had got only a few miles in- 
side, a stiff northerly w^ind blew right in our teeth, and the whole of 
the blessed day we spent in tacking backward and forward between 
one low shore and another low shore, in water the color of pea-soup, 
so that temper and patience were exhausted, and we were reduced to 
such a state that we took intense pleasure in meeting with a drowning 
alligator. He was a nice-looking young fellow about ten feet long, 
and had evidently lost his way, and was going out to sea bodily, but it 
would have been the height of cruelty to take him on board our ship 
miserable as he was, though he passed wdthin two yards of us. There 
was to be sure the pleasure of seeing Mobile in every possible view, far 
and near, east and west, and in a lump and run out, but it was not 
relished any more than our dinner, which consisted of a very gamy 
Bologna sausage, pig who had not decided whether he would be pork 
or bacon, and onions fried in a terrible preparation of Charley the cook. 
At five in the evening, however, having been nearly fourteen hours beat- 
ing about twenty-seven miles, we were landed at an outlying wharf, and 
I started off for the Battle House and rest. The streets are filled wath 
the usual rub-a-dub-dubbing bands, and parades of companies of the 
citizens in grotesque garments and armament, all looking full of fight 
and secession. I write my name in the hotel book at the bar as usual. 
Instantly young Vigilance Committee, who has been resting his heels 
high in air, with one eye on the staircase and the other on the end of 
his cigar, stalks forth and reads my style and title, and I have the 
satisfaction of slapping the door in his face as he saunters after me to 
my room, and looks curiously in to see how a man takes off" his boots. 
They are all very anxious in the evening to know what I think about 
Pickens and Pensacola, and I am pleased to tell the citizens I think it 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIEE. 63 

will be a very tough affair on both whenever it comes. I proceed to 
New Orleans on Monday, 



New-Orleans, May 25, 1861. 
There are doubts arising in my mind respecting the number of 
armed men actually in the field in the South, and the amount of arms 
in the possession of the Federal forces. The constant advertisements 
and appeals for " a few more men to complete" such and such com- 
panies furnish some sort of evidence that men are still wanting. But a 
painful and startling insight into the manner in which "volunteers" 
have been sometimes obtained has been afforded to me at New Orleans. 
In no country in the world have outrages on British subjects been so 
frequent and so wanton as in the States of America. They have been 
frequent, perhaps, because they have generally been attended with im- 
punity. Englishmen, however, will be still a little surprised to hear 
that within a few days British subjects living in New Orleans have been 
seized, knocked down, carried off from their labor at the wharf and the 
workshop, and forced by violence to serve in the " volunteer" ranks ' 
These cases are not isolated. They are not in twos and threes, but in 
tens and twenties ; they have not occurred stealthily or in by-ways ; 
they have taken place in the open day, and in the streets of New 
Orleans. These men have been dragged along like felons, protesting 
in vain that they were British subjects. Fortunately, their friends be- 
thought them that there was still a British consul in the city, who 
would protect his countrymen — English, Irish, or Scotch. Mr. Mure, 
when he heard of the reports and of the evidence, made energetic rep- 
resentations to the authorities, who, after some evasion, gave orders 
that the impressed " volunteers" should be discharged, and the " Tiger 
Rifles" and other companies were deprived of the services of the thirty- 
five British subjects whom they had taken from their usual avocations. 
The mayor promises that it shall not occur again. It is high time 
that such acts should be put a stop to, and that the mob of New 
Orleans should be taught to pay some regard to the usages of civilized 
nations. There are some strange laws here and elsewhere in reference 
to compulsory service on the part of foreigners which it would be well 
to inquire into, and Lord John Russell may be able to deal with them 
at a favorable opportunity. As to any liberty of opinion or real free- 
dom here, the boldest Southerner would not dare to say a shadow of 
either exists. It may be as bad in the North, for all I know ; but it 
must be remembered that in all my communications I speak of things 
as they appear to me to be in the place where I am at the time. The 



64 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

most cruel and atrocious acts are perpetrated by the rabble who style 
themselves citizens. The national failing of curiosity and prying into 
other people's aifairs is now rampant, and assumes the name and airs 
of patriotic vigilance. Every stranger is watched, every word is noted, 
espionage commands every keyhole and every letter-box; love of 
country takes to evesdropping, and freedom shaves men's heads, and 
packs men up in boxes for the utterance of "Abolition sentiments." 
In this city there is a terrible substratum of crime and vice, violence, 
misery, and murder, over which the wheels of the Cotton King's 
chariot rumble gratingly, and on which rest in dangerous security the 
feet of his throne. 

There are numbers of negroes who are sent out into the streets 
every day with orders not to return with less than seventy- five cents 
— any thing more they can keep. But if they do not gain that — 
about 3s. 6d. a day — they are liable to be punished ; they may be put into 
jail on charges of laziness, and may be flogged ad libttum, and are 
sure to be half starved. Can any thing, then, be more suggestive than 
this paragraph, which appeared in last night's papers. " Onlj/ three 
coroners' inquests were held yesterday on personis found drowned in 
the river, names unknown !" The italics are mine. Over and over 
again has the boast been repeated to me, that on the plantations lock 
and key are unknown or unused in the planters' houses. But in the 
cities they are much used, though scarcely trusted. It appears, indeed, 
that unless a slave has made up his or her mind to incur the dreadful 
penalties of flight, there would be no inducement to commit theft, for 
money or jewels would be useless ; search would be easy, detection 
nearly certain. That all the slaves are not indiff'erent to the issues be- 
fore them, is certain. At the house of a planter, the other day, one 
of them asked my friend, " Will we be made to work, massa, when ole 
English come ?" An old domestic in the house of a gentleman in this 
city said, " There are few whites in this place who ought not to be 
killed for their cruelty to us." Another said, "Oh, just wait'- till they 
attack Pickens !" These little hints are significant enough, coupled 
with the notices of runaways, and the lodgments in the police jails, to 
show^ tliat all is not quiet below the surface. The holders, however, 
are firm, and there have been many paragraphs stating that slaves have 
contributed to the various funds for state defence, and that they gener- 
ally show the very best spirit. 

By the proclamation of Governor Magoffin, a copy of which I enclose, 
you will see that the governor of the commonwealth of Kentucky and 
commander-in-chief of all her military forces on land or water, warns 
all states, separately or united, especially the United States and the 



PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. . 65 

Confederate States, that he will fight their troops if they attempt to 
enter his commonwealth. Thus Kentucky sets up for herself, while 
Virginia is on the eve of destruction, and an actual invasion has taken 
place on her soil. It is exceedingly difficult of comprehension that, 
with the numerous troops, artillery, and batteries, which the Confederate 
journals asserted to be in readiness to repel attack, an invasion which 
took place in face of the enemy, and was effected over a broad river, 
with shores readily defensible, should have been unresisted. Here it is 
said there is a mighty plan, in pursuance of which the United States 
troops are to be allowed to make their way into Virginia, that they may 
at some convenient place be eaten up by their enemies; and if we hear 
that the Confederates at Harper's Ferry retain their position, one may 
believe some such plan really exists, although it is rather doubtful strat- 
egy to permit the United States forces to gain possession of the right 
bank of the Potomac. Should the position at Harper's Ferry be really 
occupied with a design of using it as a point (Tappui for movements 
against the North, and any large number of troops be withdrawn from 
Annapolis, Washington and Baltimore, so as to leave those places com- 
paratively undefended, an irruption in force of the Confederates on the 
right flank and in rear of General Scott's army, might cause most seri- 
ous inconvenience, and endanger his communications, if not the posses- 
sion of the places indicated. 

Looking at the map, it is easy to comprehend that a march south- 
ward from Alexandria could be combined with an offensive movement 
by the forces said to be concentrated in and around Fortress Monroe, so 
as to place Richmond itself in danger, and, if any such measure is contem- 
plated, a battle must be fought in that vicinity, or the prestige of the 
South will receive very great damage. It is impossible for any one to 
understand the movement of the troops on both sides. These compa- 
nies are scattered broadcast over the enormous expanse of the states, 
and, where concentrated in any considerable numbers, seem to have 
had their position determined rather by local circumstances than by con- 
siderations connected w^ith the general plan of a large campaign. 

In a few days the object of the recent movement wall be better under- 
stood, and, it is probable that your correspondent at New York will send, 
by the same mail which carries this, exceedingly iinpoitant information, 
to which I, in my present position, can have no access. The influence 
of the blockade will be severely felt, combined w ith the strict interrup- 
tion of all intercourse by the Mississippi. Although the South boasts 
of its resources and of its amazing richness and abundance of produce, 
the constant advice in the journals to increase the breadth of land under 
corn, and to neglect the cotton crop in consideration of the paramount 



66 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

importance of the cause, indicates an apprehension of a scarcity of food 
if the struggle be prolonged. 

Under any circumstances, the patriotic ladies and gentlemen who are 
so anxious for the war, must make up their minds to suffer a little in the 
flesh. All they can depend on is a supply of home luxuries : Indian 
corn and wheat, the flesh of pigs, eked out with a small supply of beef 
and mutton, will constitute the staple of their food. Butter there will 
be none, and wine will speedily rise to an enormous price. Nor will 
coffee and tea be had, except at a rate which will place them out of the 
reach of the mass of the community. These are the smallest sacrifices 
of war. The blockade is not yet enforced here, and the privateers of 
the port are extremely active, and have captured vessels with more en- 
ergy than wisdom. 

The day before yesterday, ships belonging to the United States in 
that river were seized by the Confederation a^uthorities, on the ground 
that war had broken out, and that the time of grace accorded to the 
enemy's traders had expired. Great was the rush to the consul's oflSce 
to transfer the menaced property from ownership under the stars and 
stripes to British hands ; but Mr. Mure refused to recognize any trans- 
action of the kind, unless sale bona fide had been effected before the ac- 
tion of the Confederate marshals. 

At Charleston the blockade has been raised, owing, apparently, to 
some want of information or of means on the part of the United States 
government, and considerable inconvenience may be experienced by 
them in consequence. On the 11th, the United States steam-frigate 
Niao;ara appeared outside and warned off" several British ships, and on 
the 13th she was visited by Mr. Bunch, our consul, who was positively 
assured by the officers on board that eight or ten vessels would be down 
to join in enforcing the blockade. On the 15th, however, the Niagara 
departed, leaving the port open, and several vessels have since run in 
and obtained fabulous freights, suggesting to the minds of the owners 
of the vessels which were warned oflf the propriety of making enormous 
demands for compensation. The Southerners generally beheve not only 
that their Confederacy will be acknowledged, but that the blockade will 
be disregarded by England. Their affection for her is proportionably 
prodigious, and reminds one of the intensity of the gratitude which con- 
sists in lively expectations of favors to come. 



PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIPE. 67 



New Orleans, May 21, 1861. 
Yesterday morning early I left Mobile in the steamer Florida, which 
arrived in the Lake of Pontchartrain, late at night, or early this morn- 
ing. The voyage, if it can be called so, would have offered, in less ex- 
citing times, much that was interesting — certainly, to a stranger, a good 
deal that was novel — for our course lay inside a chain, almost uninter- 
rupted, of reefs, covered with sand and pine-trees, exceedingly narrow, 
so that the surf and waves of the ocean beyond could be seen rolling in 
foam through the foliage of the forest, or on the white beach, while the 
sea lake on which our steamer was speeding lay in a broad, smooth sheet, 
just crisped by the breeze, between the outward barrier and the wooded 
shores of the mainland. Innumerable creeks, or " bayous," as they are 
called, pierce the gloom of these endless pines. Now and then a sail 
could be made out, stealing through the mazes of the marshy waters. 
If the mariner knows his course, he may find deep water in most of the 
channels from the outer sea into these inner waters, on which the peo- 
ple of the South w^ill greatly depend for any coasting-trade and supplies 
coastwise, they may require, as well as for the safe retreat of their pri- 
vateers. A few miles from Mobile, the steamer turning out of the bay, 
entered upon the series of these lakes through a narrow channel called 
Grant's Pass, which some enterprising person, not improbably of Scot- 
tish extraction, constructed for his own behoof, by an ingenious water- 
cut, and for the use of which, and of a little iron lighthouse that he has 
built close at hand, on the model of a pepper-castor, he charges toll 
on passing vessels. This island is scarcely three feet above the water ; 
it is not over 20 yards broad and 150 yards long. A number of men 
w^ere, however, busily engaged in throwing up the sand, and amis 
gleamed amid some tents pitched around the solitary wooden shed in 
the centre. A schooner lay at the wharf, laden with two guns and sand- 
bags, and as we passed through the narrow channel several men in mil- 
itary uniform, who were on board, took their places in a boat which 
pushed off for them, and were conveyed to their tiny station, of which 
one shell would make a dust heap. The Mobilians are fortifying them- 
selves as best they can, and seem, not unadvisedly, jealous of gunboats 
and small war-steamers. On more than one outlying sand-bank toward 
New Orleans, are they to be seen at work on other batteries, and 
they are busied in repairing, as well as they can, old Spanish and 
new United States works which had been abandoned, or which were 
never completed. The news has just been reported, indeed, that 
the batteries they were preparing on Ship Island have been destroyed 



68 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

and burnt by a vessel of war of the United States. For the whole day 
we saw only a few coasting craft and the return steamers from New 
Orleans ; but in the evening a large schooner, which sailed like a witch 
and was crammed with men, challenged my attention, and on looking 
at her through the glass I could make out reasons enough for desiring 
to avoid her if one was a quiet, short-handed, well-filled old merchant- 
man. There could be no mistake about certain black objects on the 
deck. She lay as low as a yacht, and there were some fifty or sixty 
men in the waist and forecastle. On approaching New Orleans, there 
are some settlements rather than cities, although they are called by the 
latter title, visible on the right hand, embowered in woods and stretch- 
ing along the beach. Such are the " Mississippi City," Pass Cagoula, 
and Pass Christian, &c. — all resorts of the inhabitants of New Orleans 
during the summer heats and the epidemics- which play such havoc with 
life from time to time. Seen from the sea, these huge hamlets look very 
picturesque. The detached villas, of every variety of architecture, are 
painted brightly, and stand in gardens in the midst of magnolias and 
rhododendrons. Very long and slender piers lead far into the sea be- 
fore the very door, and at the extremity of each there is a bathing-box 
for the inmates. The general elFect of one of these settlements, with its 
light domes and spires, long lines of whitewashed railings, and houses 
of every hue set in the dark green of the pines, is very pretty. The 
steamer touched at two of them. . There was a motley group of colored 
people on the jetty, a few whites, of whom the males were nearly all in 
uniform ; a few bales of goods were landed or put on board, and that 
was all one could see of the life of that place. Our passengers never 
ceased talking politics all day, except when they were eating or drink- 
ing, for I regret to say they can continue to chew and to spit while they 
are engaged in political discussion. Some were rude provincials in uni- 
form. One was an acquaintance from the far East, who had been a 
lieutenant on board of the Minnesota, and had resigned his commission 
in order to take service under the Confederate flag. The fiercest among 
them all was a thin little lady, who uttered certain enei-getic aspiiations 
for the possession of portions of Mr. Lincoln's person, and who was kind 
enough to express intense satisfaction at the intelligence that there was 
small-pox among the garrison at Monroe. In the evening a little difl^i- 
culty occurred among some of the military gentlemen, during which one 
of the logicians drew a revolver, and presented it at the head of the gen- 
tleman who was opposed to his peculiar views, but I am happy to say 
that an arrangement, to which I was an unwilling " pai'ty," for the row 
took place within a yard of me, was entered into for a fight to come off 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 69 

on shore in two days after they landed, which led to the postponement 
of immediate murder. 

The entrance to Ponchartrain lake is infamous for the abundance of 
its mosquitos, and it was with no small satisfaction that we experienced 
a small tornado, a thunderstorm, and a breeze of wind which saved us 
from their fury. It is a dismal canal through a swamp. At daylight, 
the vessel lay alongside a wharf surrounded by small boats and bathing 
stations. A railway shed receives us on shore, and a train is soon ready 
to start for the city, which is six miles distant. For a few hundred 
yards the line passes between wooden houses, used as restaurants, or 
" restaurats," as they are called hereaway, kept by people with French 
names and using the French tongue ; then the rail plunges through a 
swamp, dense as an Indian jungle, and with the overflowings of the 
Mississippi creeping in feeble, shallow currents over the black mud. 
Presently the spires of churches are seen rising above the underwood 
and rushes. Then we come out on a wide marshy plain, in which 
flocks of cattle, up to the belly in mud, are floundering to get at the 
rich herbage on the unbroken surface. Next comes a wide-spread sub- 
urb of exceedingly broad lanes, lined with small one-storied houses. 
The inhabitants are pale, lean, and sickly ; and there is about the men 
a certain look, almost peculiar to the fishy-fleshy populations of Le- 
vantine towns, which I cannot describe, but which exists all along the 
Mediterranean seaboard, and crops out here again. The drive through 
badly-paved streets enables us to see that there is an air of French civi- 
lization about New Orleans. The streets are wisely adapted to the 
situation ; they are not so wide as to permit the sun to have it all his 
own way from rising to setting. The shops are " magasins ;" cafes 
abound. The colored population looks well dressed, and is going to 
mass or market iu the early morning. The pavements are crowded 
with men in uniform, in which the taste of France is generally followed. 
The carriage stops at last, and rest comes gratefully after the stormy 
night, the mosquitos, " the noise of the captains" (at the bar), and the 
shouting. 

May 22. — The prevalence of the war spirit here is in every thing 
somewhat exaggerated by the fervor of Gallic origin, and the violence 
of popular opinion and the tyranny of the mass are as potent as in any 
place in the South. The great house of Brown Brothers, of Liverpool 
and New York, has closed its business here in consequence of the in- 
timidation of the mob, or as the phrase is, of the " citizens," who were 
" excited" by seeing that the firm had subscribed to the New York 
fund, on its sudden resurrection after Fort Sumter had fallen. Some 



VO PICTUKES OF SOUTHERX LIFE. 

other houses are about to pursue the same course ] all large business 
transactions are over for the season, and the migratory population 
which comes here to trade, has taken wing much earlier than usual. 
But the streets are full of '' Turcos," and " Zouaves," and " Chasseurs ;" 
the tailors are busy night and day on uniforms ; the walls are covered 
with placards for recruits ; the seamstresses are sewing flags ; the ladies 
are carding lint and stitching cartridge-bags. The newspapers are 
crowded with advertisements relating to the formation of new compa- 
nies of volunteers and the election of officers. There are Pickwick 
Rifles, Lafayette, Beauregard, Irish, German, Scotch, Italian, Spanish, 
Crescent, McMahon — innumerable — rifle volunteers of all names and 
nationalities, and the Meagher Rifles, indignant with " that valiant son 
of Mars" because he has drawn his sword for the North, have rebap- 
tized themselves, and are going to seek glory under a more auspicious 
nomenclature. About New Orleans, I shall have more to say when I 
see more of it. At present it looks very like an outlying suburb of 
Chalons when the grand camp is at its highest military development, 
although the thermometer is rising gradually, and obliges one to know 
occasionally that it can be 95° in the shade already. In the course of 
my journeyings southward, I have failed to find much evidence that 
there is any apprehension on the part of the planters of a servile insur- 
rection, or that the slaves are taking much interest in the coming con- 
test, or know what it is about. But I have my suspicions that all is 
not right ; paragraphs meet the eye, and odd sentences stiike the ear, 
and little facts here and there come to the knowledge, which arouse 
curiosity and doubt. There is one stereotyped sentence which I am 
tired of: "Our negroes, sir, are the happiest, the most contented, and 
the best off* of any people in the world." 

The violence and reiterancy of this formula cause one to inquire 
whether any thing which demands such insistance is really in the con- 
dition predicated ; and for myself I always say : " It may be so, but 
as yet I do not see the proof of it. The negroes do not look to be 
what you say they are." For the present that is enough as to one's 
own opinions. Externally, the paragraphs which attract attention, and 
the acts of the authorities, are inconsistent with the notion that the 
negroes are all very good, very happy, or at all contented, not to speak 
of their being in the superlative condition of enjoyment ; and as I only 
see them as yet in the most superficial way, and under the most favor- 
able circumstances, it may be that when the cotton-picking season is 
at its height, and it lasts for several months, when the labor is contin- 
uous from sunrise to sunset, there is less reason to accept the assertions 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 71 

as so largely and generally true of the vast majority of the slaves. 
" There is an excellent gentleman over there," said a friend to me, 
" who gives his overseers a premium of ten dollars on the birth of 
every child on his plantation." " Why so ?" " Oh, in order that the 
overseers may not work the women in the family-way overmuch." 
There is little use in this part of the world in making use of inferences. 
But where overseers do not get the premium, it may be supposed they 
do work the pregnant women too much. Here are two paragraphs 
which do not look very well as they stand. 

Those negroes who were taken with a sudden leaving on Sunday night last, will 
save the country the expenses of their burial if they keej) dark from these parts. 
They and other of the " breden" wnll not be permitted to express themselves quite 
so freely in regard, to their braggadocio designs upon virtue, in the absence of vol- 
unteers. — Wilmington ( Glintock County, Ohio) Watchman (Bepublican). 

Served Him Right. One day last week, some colored individual, living near 
South Plymouth, made a threat that, in case a civil war should occur, ''he would 
be one to ravish the wife of every democrat, and to help murder their offspring, 
and wash his bands in their blood." For this diabolical assertion he was hauled 
up before a committee of white citizens, who adjudged him forty stripes on his 
naked back. He was accordingly stripped, and the lashes were laid on with such 
a good will that blood flowed at the end of the castigation. — Washington (Fayette 
County, Ohio) Register {Neutral). 

It is reported that the patrols are strengthened, and I could not help 
hearing a charming young lady say to another, the other evening, that 
" she would not be afraid to go back to the plantation, though Mrs. 
Brown Jones said she was afraid her negroes were after mischief." 

There is a great scarcity of powder, which is one of the reasons, 
perhaps, why it has not yet been expended as largely as might be ex- 
pected from the tone and temper on both sides. There is no sulphur 
in the States; nitre and charcoal abound. The sea is open to the 
North. There is no great overplus of money on either side. In Mis- 
souri, the interest on the state debt, due in July, wdll be used to pro- 
cure arms for the state volunteers to carry on the war. The South is 
preparing for the struggle by sowing a most nnusual quantity of grain ; 
and in many fields corn and maize have been planted instead of cotton. 
" Stay laws," by which all inconveniences arising from the usual dull, 
old-fashioned relations between debtor and creditor are avoided (at 
least by the debtor), have been adopted in most of the seceding states. 
How is it that the state legislatures seem to be in the hands of the 
debtors and not of the creditors ? 

There are some who cling to the idea that there wdll be no war after 
all, but no one believes that the South will ever go back of its own free 



72 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

will, and the only reason that can be given by those who hope rather 
than think in that way is to be found in the faith that the North will 
accept some mediation, and will let the South go in peace. But could 
there — can there be peace? The frontier question — the adjustment of 
various claims — the demands for indemnity, or for privileges or exemp- 
tions, in the present state of feeling, can have but one result. The task 
of mediation is sure to be as thankless as abortive. Assuredly the prof- 
fered service of England would, on one side at least, be received with 
something like insult. Nothing but adversity can teach these people 
its own most useful lessons. Material prosperity has puffed up the citi- 
zens to an unwholesome state. The toils and sacrifices of the old world 
have been taken by them as their birthright, and they have accepted 
the fruits of all that the science, genius, suffering, and trials of mankind 
in time past have wrought out, perfected, and won as their own pecu- 
liar inheritance, while they have ignorantly rejected the advice and 
scorned the lessons with which these were accompanied. 

May 23. — The Congress at Montgomery, having sat with closed doors 
almost since it met, has now adjourned till July the 20th, when it 
will reassemble at Richmond, in Virginia, which is thus designated, for 
the time, capital of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, tlie 
principal city of the Old Dominion, is about one hundred miles in a 
straight line south by west of Washington. The rival capitals will thus 
be in very close proximity by rail and by steam, by land and by water. 
The movement is significant. It will tend to hasten a collision between 
the forces which are collected on the opposite sides of the Potomac. 
Hitherto, Mr. Jefferson Davis has not evinced all the sagacity and ener- 
gy, in a military sense, which he is said to possess. It was bad strategy 
to menace Washington before he could act. His secretary of w^ar, Mr. 
Walker, many weeks' ago, in a public speech, announced the intention 
of marching upon the capital. If it was meant to do so, the blow should 
have been struck silently. If it was not intended to seize upon Wash- 
ington, the threat had a very disastrous effect on the South, as it excited 
the North to immediate action, and caused General Scott to concentrate 
his troops on points which present many advantages in the face of any 
operations which may be considered necessary along the lines either of 
defence or attack. The movement against the Norfolk navy-yard 
strengthened Fortress Monroe, and the Potomac and Chesapeake were 
secured to the United States. The fortified ports held by the Virgini- 
ans and the Confederate States troops, are not of much value as long as 
the streams are commanded by the enemy's steamers ; and General 
Scott has shown that he has not outlived either his reputation or Li-^ 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 73 

vigor by the steps, at once wise and rapid, lie has taken to curb the 
malcontents in Maryland, and to open his communications through the 
city of Baltimore. Although immense levies of men may be got toge- 
ther, on both sides, for purposes of local defence or for state operations, 
it seems to me that it will be very difficult to move these masses in reg- 
ular armies. The men are not disposed for regular, lengthened service, 
and there is an utter want of field trains, equipment^ and commissadat, 
which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a morrfh. 

The bill passed by the Montgomery Congress, entitled " An act to 
raise an additional military force to serve during the war," is, in fact, a 
measure to put into the hands of the government; the control of irregu- 
lar bodies of men, and to bind them to regular military service. With 
all their zeal, the people of the South will not enlist. They detest the 
recruiting sergeant, and Mr. Davis knows enough of war to feel hesita- 
tion in trusting himself in the field to volunteers. The bill authorizes 
Mr. Davis to accept volunteers who may offer their services, without re- 
gard to the place of enlistment, " to serve during the war, unless sooner 
discharged." They may be accepted in companies, but Mr. Davis is to 
organize them into squadrons, battalions, or regiments, and the appoint- 
ment of field and staff officers is reserved especially to him. The com- 
pany officers are to be elected by the men of the company, but here 
again Mr. Davis reserves to himself the right of veto, and will only 
commission those officers whose election he approves. 

The absence of cavalry and the deficiency of artillery may prevent 
either side obtaining any decisive results in one engagement ; but, no 
doubt, there will be great loss whenever these large masses of men are 
fairly opposed to each other in the field. Of the character of the North- 
ern regiments I can say nothing more from actual observation ; nor have 
I yet seen, in any place, such a considerable number of the troops of the 
Confederate States, moving together, as would justify me in expressing 
any opinion with regard to their capacity for organized movements, 
such as regular troops in Europe are expected to perform. An intelli- 
gent and trustworthy observer, taking one of the New York state mili- 
tia regiments as a fair specimen of the battalions which will fight for the 
United States, gives an account of them which leads me to the conclu- 
sion that such regiments are much superior, when furnished by the 
country, districts, to those raised in the towns and cities. It appears, in 
this case at least, that the members of the regular militia companies in 
general send substitutes to the ranks. Ten of these companies form the 
regiment, and, in nearly every instance, they have been doubled in 
strength by volunteers. Their drill is exceedingly incomplete, and in 
4 



74 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

forming the companies there is a tendency for the ditferent nationaUties 
to keep themselves together. In the regiment in question the rank and 
file often consists of qnarrymen, mechanics, and canal boatmen, moun- 
taineers from the Catskill, bark peelers, and timber cutters — ungainly, 
square-built, powerful fellows, with a Dutch tenacity of purpose crossed 
with an English indifference to danger. There is no drunkenness and 
no desertion among them. The officers are almost as ignorant of mili- 
tary training as their men. The colonel, for instance, is the son of a 
rich man in his district, well educated, and a man of travel. Another 
officer is a shipmaster. A third is an artist ; others are merchants and 
lawyers, and they are all busy studying " Hardee's Tactics," the best 
book for infantry drill in the United States. The men have come out 
to fight for what they consider the cause of the country, and are said 
to have no particular hatred of the South, or of its inhabitants, though 
they think they are " a darned deal too high and mighty, and require 
to be wiped down considerably." They have no notion as to the length 
of time for which their services will be required, and I am assured that 
not one of them has asked what his pay is to be. 

Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence that its 
claims to be tlie capital of a republic which asserts tha,t it is the rich- 
est, and believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by 
any means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has refer- 
ence rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a 
distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations 
which suited the modest wants of a state legislature vanished or were 
transmuted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central 
government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of ap- 
plicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as 
could be spared from the executive table. Never shall I forget the dis- 
may of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our 
arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circumstances with some of which 
you are already acquainted. AVith us were men of high position, 
members of Congress, senators, ex-governors, and General Beauregard 
himself. But to no one v/as greater accommodation extended than 
could be furnished by a room held, under a sort of ryot-Avarree tenure, 
in common wdth a community of strangers. My room was shown to 
me. It contained' four large four-post beds, a ricketty table, and some 
chairs of infirm purpose and fundamental unsoundness. The floor was 
carpetless, covered with litter of paper and ends of cigars, and stained 
with tobacco juice. The broken glass of the window aftorded no un- 
grateful means of ventilation. One gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves at 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 15 

the table reading the account of the marshalling of the Highlanders 
at Edinburgh in the Abbottsford edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, 
who had been wearied, apparently, by writing numerous applications 
to the government for some military post, of which rough copies lay 
scattered around, came in, after refreshing himself at the bar, and oc- 
cupied one of the beds, which by the bye, were ominously provided 
with two pillows apiece. Supper there was none for us in the house, 
but a search in an outlying street enabled us to discover a restaurant, 
where roasted squirrels and baked opossums figured as luxuries in the 
bill of fare. On our return we found that due preparation had been 
made in the apartment by the addition of three mattresses on the floor. 
The beds were occupied by unknown statesmen and warriors, and we 
all slumbered and snored in friendly concert till morning. Gentlemen 
in the South complain that strangers judge of them by their hotels, but 
it is a very natural standard for strangers to adopt, and in respect to 
Montgomery it is almost the only one that a gentleman can conveniently 
use, for if the inhabitants of this city and its vicinity are not maligned, 
there is an absence of the hospitable spirit which the South lays claim 
to as one of its animating principles, and a little bird whispered to me 
that from Mr. Jefferson Davis down to the least distinguished member 
of his government there was reason to observe that the usual attentions 
and civilities offered by residents to illustrious stragglers had been 
" conspicuous for their absence." The fact is, that the small planters 
who constitute the majority of the land-owners are not in a position to 
act the Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarce- 
ly aspire to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but 
are a frugal, simple, hog-and-hominy living people, fond of hard work 
and, occasionally, of hard drinking. 



New Orleans, Ifay 24, 1861. 
It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confeder- 
acy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which 
Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation pros- 
trate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the una- 
nimity of the people. If words mean anything, they are animated by 
only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can 
command a man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character 
in this disposition of the South. In every state there is only one voice 
audible. Hereafter, indeed, state jealousies may work their own way. 
Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts 



16 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

— and they do not look like it — they will fight to the last before they 
give in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by 
their determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vo- 
ciferation about their declarations of implicit trust and reliance on their 
slaves which makes one think " they do protest too much," and it re- 
mains to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their 
masters should the abolition army ever come among them as an armed 
propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who 
might be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. 
The military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the 
various classes of the people, and the very boast that so many rich men 
are serving in the ranks is a significant proof, either of the want of a 
substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause, of any 
such layer of white people as may underlie the great slave-holding, mer- 
cantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole state of Louisiana contains 
about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number only 
15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever, and if one 
is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertisements which appear 
from the adjutant-general's office, there was some difficulty in procur- 
ing the 3,0u0 men — m.erely 3,000 volunteers -" to serve during the 
war," who are required by the Confederate government. There is 
"plenty of prave 'ords," and if fierce writing and talking could do the 
work, the armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long 
ago. It is found out that ''lives of the citizens" at Pensacola are too 
valuable to be destioyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall 
drive away the ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitos, rattlesnakes, 
small-pox — any of these agencies, is looked to with confidence to do 
the work of shot, shell, and bayonet. Our American " brethren in 
arms" have yet to learn that great law in military cookery, that "if 
they want to make omelets they must break eggs." The " moral 
suasion" of the lasso, of head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such pro- 
cesses, are, I suspect, used not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers ; 
and the extent to which the acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat 
aided by the arm of the law, and the force of the policeman and the 
magistrate, may be seen from paragraphs in the morning papers now 
and then, to the effect that certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, 
who might have been engaged in pugilistic pursuits, were discharged 
from custody unpunished on condition that they enlisted for the war. 
With the peculiar views entertained of freedom of opinion and action 
by large classes of people on this continent, such a mode of obtaining 
volunteers is very natural, but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on the 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. ^7 

part of some of the 50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can 
hear — and I have asked numerous persons likely to be acquainted with 
the subject — there are not more than those 15,000 men of whom I 
have spoken in all the state under arms, or in training, of whom a con- 
siderable proportion will be needed for garrison and coast defence du- 
ties. It may be that the Northern states and Northern sentiments are 
as violent as those of the South but I see some evidences to the con- 
trary. For instance, in New York ladies and gentlemen from the South 
are permitted to live at their favorite hotel without molestation, and 
one hotel keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises openly for the custom 
of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South which I have visited 
would a party of Northern people be permitted to remain for an hour 
if the " citizens" were aware of their presence. It is laughable to hear 
men speaking of the " unanimity" of the South. Just look at the pe- 
culiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured ! This is 
an extract from a New Orleans paper : 

Charges op Abolitionism. — Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the cases 
brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the accused to the work- 
house. 

A Mexican named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and Uving here with an Irish 
wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning charged with uttering Abohtion 
sentiments. After a full investigation, it was found from the utterance of his in- 
cendiary language, that Cruz's education was not yet perfect in Southern classics, 
and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent for six months to the Humane In- 
stitution for the Amelioration of the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Aboli- 
tion Fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell, koeper of the workhouse, 
who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics and institutions. 

The testiniony before him Saturday, however, in the case of a mah named David 
O'Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the accused for trial before the 
Criminal Court. One of the witnesses testified positively that he heard him make 
his children shout for Lincoln ; another, that the accused said, " I am an abolition- 
ist," &c. The witnesses, the neighbors of the accused, gave their evidence reluct- 
antly, saying that they had warned him of the folly and danger of his conduct. 
O'Keefe says he has been a United States soldier, and came here from St. Louis and 
Kansas. 

John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Saturday for uttering in- 
cendiary language while traveling in the baggage car of a train of the Xew Orleans, 
Ohio, and Great Western Railroad, intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson 
Davis would get $10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped 
like dogs by the Lincolnites. H-s v,^as held under bonds of $500 to answer the 
charge on the 8th of June. 

Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist, and acting very 
much like he was one, by harboring a runaway slave, was sent to prison in default 
of bail, to await examination before the recorder. 



78 PICTURES OF SOUTHERX LIFE. 

Such is "freedom of speech" in Louisiana! But in Texas the ma- 
chinery for the production of " unanimity" is less complicated, and 
there are no insulting legal formalities connected with the working of 
the simple appliances which a primitive agricultural people have devised 
for their own purposes. Hear the Texan correspondent of one of the 
journals of this city on the subject. He says : 

It is to us astonishing, that such unmitigated hes as those Northern papers dis- 
seminate of anarchy and disorder here in Texas, dissension among ourselves, and 
especially from our German, &c., population, with dangers and anxieties from the 
fear of insurrection among the negroes, &c., should be deemed anywhere South 
worthy of a moment's thought. It is surely notorious enough that in no part of 
the South are Abolitionists, or other disturbers of the public peace, so very unsafe 
as in Texas. The lasso is so very convenient ! 

Here is an excellent method of preventing dissension described by a 
stroke of the pen ; and, as such, an ingenious people are not likely to 
lose sight of the uses of a revolution in developing peculiar principles 
to their own advantage, repudiation of debts to the North has been 
proclaimed and acted on. One gentleman has found it convenient to 
inform Major Anderson that he does not intend to meet certain bills 
which he had given the major for some slaves, Aiiother declares he 
won't pay any one at all, as he has discovered it is immoral and con- 
trary to the law of nations to do so. A third feels himself bound to 
obey the commands of the governor of his state, who has ordered that 
debts due to the North shall not be liquidated. As a nai»e specimen 
of the way in which the whole case is treated, take this article and the 
correspondence of " one of the most prominent mercantile houses in 
New Orleans :" 

SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH. 

The Cincinnati Gazette copies the following paragraph from The Kew York Even- 
ing Post: 

" Bad Faith. — The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their transactions with 
their Northern correspondents is becoming more evident daily. We have heard of 
several recent cases where parties in this city, retired from active business, have, 
nevertheless, stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends. They 
are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for these advances until 
the war is over. We know of a retired merchant who in this way has lost $100,000" 
— and adds : 

" The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief sufferers. 
Debts are coolly repudiated by Southern merchants, who have heretofore enjoyed 
a first-class reputation. Men who have grown rich upon the trade furnished by 
the West are among the first to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, 
with all the impudence and assurance of a highwayman, "What are you going to 
do about it?" There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is not a spark of 
honor among these repudiating merchants. People who have aided and trusted 



PICTTJEES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 79 

them to the last moment, are the greatest losers. There is a future, however. This 
war wUl be over, and the Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their 
connections with the West. As the repudiators — such as Goodrich & Co., of Xew 
Orleans — will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest men. 

" There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty is the rule. 
The latter is but the development of latent rascahty. The rebeUion has afforded a 
pretext merely for the smndling operations. The parties previously acted honestly^ 
only because that was the best poUcy. The sifting process that may now be con- 
ducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future. The present 
losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains." 

We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade from one of 
our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich & Co. : 

New Orleans, May 24, 1861. 

Cincinnati Gazette. — We were handed, through a friend of ours, your isgue of 
the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article contained therein, in which you 
are pleased to particularize us out of a large number of highly respectable mer- 
chants of this and other Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epi- 
thets, better suited to the mouths of the Wilson regiment of New York than from 
a once respectable sheet, but which now has sunk so low in the depths of nig- 
gerdom that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis and the Ohio River to cleanse 
it from its foul pollution. 

We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above article, as we 
deem i: the best card you could pubhsh for us, and may add greatly to our business 
relations in the Confederate States, which will enable us in the end to pay our in- 
debtedness to those who propose cutting our throat?, destroying our property, 
steahng our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay such men in 
times of war. You may term it rascally, but we beg leave to call it patriotism. 

"Giving the sinews of war to your enemies has ever been considered treason." — 
Kent. 

Now for "repudiating." We have never, nor do we ever expect to repudiate 
any debt owing by our firm. But this much we wQl say, never wiU we pay a debt 
due by us to a man, or any company of men, who is a kno^vm Black Repubhcan, 
and marching in battle array to invade our homes and firesides, until every such 
person shall be driven back and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once 
happy soil, be entirely obliterated. 

We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have passed through 
every crisis with our names untarnished or credit impaired, and would at present 
sacrifice all we have made, were it necessary, to sustain our credit in the Confeder- 
acy, but care nothing for the opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. 
We are sufficiently known in this city not to require the indorsement of The Ciw 
cinnati Gazette, or any such sheet, for a character. 

The day is coming, and not far distant, when there wfil be an awful reckoning, 
and we are willing and determined to stand by our Confederate flag, sink or swim, 
and would like to meet some of Tlie Gazette's editors vis-a-vis on the field of blood, 
and see who would be the first to flinch. 

Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year to your popula- 
tion, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few more left which you can- 
have, provided you will come and take them yourselves. 



80 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

Vv"e have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a place in your 
paper. GOODRICH & CO. 

There is some little soreness felt here about the use of the word 
" repudiation," and it will do the hearts of some people good, and will 
carry comfort to the ghost of the Rev. Sydney Smith, if it can hear the 
tidings, to know I have been assured, over and over again, by eminent 
mercantile people and statesmen, that there is a " general desire" on 
the part of the repudiating states to pay their bonds, and that no 
doubt, at some future period, not very clearly ascertainable or plainly 
indicated, that general desire will cause some active steps to be taken 
to satisfy its intensity, of a character very unexpected, and very gratify- 
ing to those interested. The tariff of the Southern Confederation has 
just been promulgated, and I send herewith a copy of the rates. 
Simultaneously, however, with this document, the United States steam- 
ffigates Brooklyn and Niagara have made their appearance off the Pass 
a r Outre, and the jMississippi is closed, and with it the port of New 
Orleans. The steam-tugs refuse to tow out vessels for fear of capture, 
and British ships are in jeopardy. 

May 25. — A visit to the camp at Tangipao, about fifty miles from 
New Orleans, gave an occasion for obtaining a clearer view of the in- 
ternal military condition of those forces of which one reads much and 
sees so little than any other way. Major-General Lewis of the State 
Militia, and staff, and General Labuzan, a Creole officer, attended by 
Major Ranney, President of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great 
Northern Railway, and by many officers in uniform, started with that 
purpose at half-past four this evening in a railway carriage, carefully 
and comfortably fitted for their reception. The militia of Louisiana 
has not been called out for many years, and its officers have no mili- 
tary experience and the men have no drill or discipline. 

Emerging from the swampy suburbs, we soon pass between white 
clover pastures, which we are told invariably salivate the herds of small 
but plump cattle browsing upon them. Soon cornfields " in tassel," 
alternate with long narrow rows of growing sugar-cane, which, though 
scarcely a fourth of the height of the maize, will soon overshadov/ it ; 
and the cane-stalks grow up so densely together that nothing larger 
than a rattlesnake can pass between them. 

From Kennersville, an ancient sugar plantation cut up into " town 
lots," our first halt, ten miles out, we shoot through a cypress swamp, 
the primitive forest of this region, and note a greater affluence of 
Spanish moss than in the woods of Georgia or Carolina. There it 
hung, like a hermit's beard, from the pensile branch. Here, to one 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 81 

who should venture to thread the snake aud alligator haunted mazes 
of the jungle, its matted profusion must resemble clusters of stalactites 
pendent from the roof of some vast cavern ; for the gloom of an endless 
night appears to pervade the deeper recesses, at the entrance of which 
stand, like outlying skeleton pickets, the unfelled and leafless patriarchs 
of the clearing, that for a breadth of perhaps fifty yards on either side 
seems to have furnished the road with its sleepers. 

The gray swamp yields to an open savanna, beyond which, upon 
the left, a straggling line of sparse trees skirts the left bank of the 
Mississippi, and soon after the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain 
appears within gunshot of our right, only separated from the road by a 
hundred yards or more of rush-covered prairie, which seems but a feeble 
barrier against the caprices of so extensive a sheet of water, subject to 
the influences of wind and tide. In fact, ruined shanties and out-houses, 
fields laid waste, and prostrate fences, remain evidences of the ravages of 
the " wash" which a year ago inundated and rendered the railroad im- 
passable save for boats. The down train's first notice of the disaster 
was the presence of a two-story frame building, which the waves had 
transported to the road, and its 'passengers, detained a couple of days 
in what now strikes us as a most grateful combination of timber- 
skirted meadow and lake scenery, were rendered insensible to its 
beauties by the torments of hungry mosquitos. Had its engineers 
given the road but eighteen inches more elevation its patrons would 
have been spared this suff'ering, and its stockholders might have re- 
joiced in a dividend. Many of the settlers have abandoned their im- 
provements. Others, chiefly what are here called Dutchmen, have 
resumed their tillage with unabated zeal, and large fields of cabbages, 
one of them embracing not less than sixty acres, testify to their energy. 

Again, through miles of cypress swamps the train passes on to what 
is called the " trembliiig prairie," where the sleepers are laid upon a 
tressel-work of heavier logs, so that the rails are raised by " cribs" of 
timber nearly a yard above the morass. Three species of rail, one of 
them as large as a curlew, and the summer-duck, seem the chief occu- 
pants of the marsh, but white cranes and brown bitterns take the 
alarm, and falcons and long-tailed " blackbirds " sail in the distance. 

Toward sunset a halt took place upon the long bridge that divides 
Lake Maurepas, a picturesque sheet of water which blends with the 
horizon on our left, from Pass Manchac, an arm of Lake Pontchartrain, 
which disappears in the forest on our right. Half-a-dozen wherries 
and a small fishing-smack are moored in front of a licketty cabin, 
crowded by the jungle to the margin of the cove. It is the first token 
4* 



82 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

of a settlement that has occiirre^ for miles, and when we have suffi- 
ciently admired the scene, rendered picturesque in the sunset by the 
dense copse, the water and the bright colors of the boats at rest upon 
it, a commotion at the head of the train arises from the unexpected 
arrival upon the " switch" of a long string of cars filled with half a 
rejriment of volunteers, who had been enlisted for twelve months' ser- 
vice, and now refused to be mustered in for the war, as required by the 
recent enactment of the Montgomery Congress. The new-comers are 
at length safely lodged on the " turn-off," and our train continues its 
journey. As we pass the row of cars, most of them freight wagons, we 
are hailed with shouts and yells in every key by the disbanded volun- 
teers, who seem a youngish, poorly-clad, and undersized lot, though 
noisy as a street mob. 

After Manchac, the road begins to creep up toward terra firma, and 
before nightfall there was a change from cypresses and swamp laurels 
to pines and beeches, and we inhale the purer atmosphere of dry land, 
with an occasional whiff of resinous fragrance, that dispels the fever- 
tainted sno-o-estions of the swamp below. There we only breathed to 
live. Here we seem to live to breathe. The rise of the road is a 
grade of but a foot to the mile, and yet at the camp an elevation of 
not more than eighty feet in as many miles suffices to establish all the 
climatic difference between the malarious marshes and a much higher 
mountain region. 

But during our journey the hampers have not been neglected. The 
younger members of the party astonish the night-owls with patriotic 
songs, chiefly French, and the French chiefly with the " Marseillaise," 
which, however inappropriate as the slogan of the Confederate states, 
they persist in quavering, forgetful, perhaps, that not three-quarters of 
a century ago Toussaint TOuverture caught the words and air of his 
masters, and awoke the lugubrious notes of the insurrection. 

Toward nine p. m., the special car rests in the woods, and is flanked 
on one side by the tents and watch-fires of a small encampment, chiefly 
of navvy and cotton-handling Milesian volunteers, called " the Tigers," 
from their prehensile powers and predatory habits. A guard is sta- 
tioned around the car; a couple of Ethiopians who !-ave attended us 
from town are left to answer the query, quis custodlet ipsos custodes ? 
and we make our way to the hotel, which looms up in ths moonlight 
in a two-storied dignity. Here, alas ! there have been no preparations 
made to sleep or feed us. The scapegoat "nobody" announced our 
coming. Some of the guests are club men, used to the small hours, 
who engage a room, a table, half a dozen chairs, and a brace of bottles 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 83 

to serve as candlesticks. They have brought stearine and pasteboards 
with them, and are soon deep in the finesses of '^ Euchre." We quiet Iv 
stroll back to the car, our only hope of shelter. At the entrance we 
are challenged by a sentry, apparently ignorant that he has a percussion 
cap on his brown rifle, which he levels at us cocked. From this un- 
pleasant vision of an armed and reckless Tiger rampant we are relieved 
by one of the dusky squires, who assures the sentinel that we are "all 
right," and proceeds to turn over a seat and arrange wbat might be 
called a sedan-chair bed, in which we prepare to make a night of it. 
Our party is soon joined by others in quest of repose, and in half an 
hour breathings, some of them so deep as to seem subterranean, indi- 
cate that all have attained their object — like Manfred's — forgetfulness. 

An early breakfast of rashers and eggs was prepared at the table 
dlwte, which we were told would be replenished half-hourly until noon, 
when a respite of an hour was allowed to the " help," in which to make 
ready a dinner, to be served in the same progression. 

Through a shady dingle a winding path led to the camp, and, after 
trudging a pleasant half-mile, a bridge of boards, resting on a coupla 
of trees laid across a pool, was passed, and, above a slight embankment, 
tents and soldiers are reveded upon a " clearing " of some thirty acres 
in the midst of a pine forest. Turning to the left, we reach a double 
row of tents, only distinguished from the rest by their "fly roofs" and 
boarded floors, and, in the centre, halt opposite to one which a poster 
of capitals on a planed deal marks as " Head-quarters." Major-General 
Tracy commands the camp. The white tents crouching close to the 
shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various 
as those of Joseph's coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally 
the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley 
from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open, resembles 
a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the 
dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels sufi"er no 
volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without ? 
pass or the word. There are neither wagons nor ambulances, and the 
men are rollinor in barrels of bacon and bread and shoulderino- bacrs 
of pulse — good picnic practice and campaigning gymnastics in fair 
weather. 

The arms of these volunteers are the old United States smooth-bore 
musket, altered from flint to percussion, with bayonet — a heavy and 
obsolete copy of Brown Bess. in bright barrels. All are in creditable 
order. Most of them have never been used, even to fire a parade 
volley, for powder is scarce in the Confederated States, and must not 



84 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

be wasted. Except in their material, the shoes of the troops are as 
varied as their clothing. None have as yet been served out, and each 
still wears the boots, the brogans, the patent leathers, or the Oxford 
ties in which he enlisted. The tents have mostly no other floor than 
the earth, and that rarely swept ; while blankets, boxes, and utensils 
are stowed in corners with a disregard of symmetry that would drive 
;i martinet mad. Camp-stools are rare and tables invisible, save here 
and there in an officer's tent. Still the men look well, and, we are 
told, would doubtless present a more cheerful appearance, but for some 
little demoralization occasioned by discontent at the repeated changes 
in the organic structure of the regiments, arising from misapprehensions 
between the state and federal authorities, as well as from some favo- 
ritism toward certain officers, elected by political wire-pulling in the 
governing councils. The system of electing officers by ballot has made 
the camp as thoroughly a political arena as the poll-districts in New 
Orleans before an election, and thus many heroes, seemingly ambitious 
of epaulettes, are in reality only " laying pipes" for the attainment of 
civil power or distinction after the war. 

The volunteers we met at Manchac the previous evening had been 
enlisted by the state to serve for twelve months, and had refused to 
extend their engagement for the war — a condition now made precedent 
at Montgomery to their being mustered into the army of the Confed- 
erate States. Another company, a majority of whom persist in the 
same refusal, were disbanded while we were patrolling the camp, and 
an officer told one of the party he had suffered a loss of 600 volunteers 
by this disintegrating process within the last twenty-four hours. Some 
of these country companies were skilled in the use of the rifle, and 
most of them had made pecuniary sacrifices in the way of time, jour- 
neys, and equipments. Our informant deplored this reduction of vob 
unteers, as tending to engender disaffection in the parishes to which 
they will return, and comfort, when known, to the Abolitionists of the 
North. He added that the w^ar will not perhaps last a twelvemonth, 
and if unhappily prolonged beyond that period, the probabilities are in 
favor of the short-term recruits willingly consenting to a re-enlistment. 

The encampment of the " Perrit Guards" was worthy of a visit, 
Here was a company oi i:>rofe8slonal gamblers^ 112 strong, recruited foi 
the war in a moment of banter by one of the patriarchs of the frater- 
nity, who, upon hearing at the St. Charles Hotel one evening that the 
vanity or the patriotism of a citizen, not famed for liberality, had en- 
dowed with |1,000 a company wdiich was to bear his name, exclaimed 
that "he would give $1,500 to any one who should be fool enough to 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 85 

foiTn a company and call it after him." In less than an hour after the 
utterance of this caprice, Mr. Perrit was waited upon by fifty-six " pro- 
fessionals," who had enrolled their names as the ''Perrit Guards," and 
unhesitatingly produced from his wallet the sum so sportively pledged. 
The Guards are uniformed in mazarine-blue flannel with red facings, 
and the captain, a youngish-looking fellow, with a hawk's eye, who had 
seen service with Scott in Mexico and Walker in Xicaragua, informed 
us that there is not a pair of shoes in the company that cost less than 
$6, and that no money has been spared to perfect their other appoint- 
ments. A sack of icG and half a dozen silver goblets enforced his 
invitation " to take a drink at his quarters," and we were served by an 
African in uniform, who afterward offered us cigars received by the last 
Havana steamer. Looking at the sable attendant, one of the party ob- 
served that if these " experts of fortune win the present fight, it will be 
a case of couleur gagne^ 

It would be difficult to find in the same number of men taken at 
hazard greater diversities of age, stature, and physiognomy ; but in 
keenness of eye and imperturbability of demeanor they exhibit a family 
likeness, and there is not an unintelligent face in the company. The 
gamblers, or, as they are termed, the " sports," of the United States 
have an air of higher breeding and education than the dice-throwers 
and card-turners of Ascot or Newmarket — nay, they may be considered 
the Anglo-Saxon equals, minus the title, of those ames damnees of the 
continental nobility who are styled Greeks by their Parisian victims. 
They are the Pariahs of American civilization, who are, nevertheless, 
in daily and familiar intercourse with their patrons, and not restricted, 
as in England, to a betting-ring toleration by the higher orders. The 
Guards are the model company of Camp Moore, and I should have felt 
disposed to admire the spirit of gallantry with which they have volun- 
teered in this war as a purification by fire of their maculated lives were 
it not hinted that the " Oglethorpe Guards" and more than one other 
company of volunteers are youths of large private fortunes, and that in 
the Secession as in the Mexican War, these patriots will doubtless 
pursue their old calling with as much profit as they may their new one 
with valor. 

From the lower camp we wind through tents, which diminish in 
neatness and cleanliness as we advance deeper, to the upper division, 
which is styled " Camp Tracy," a newer formation, whose brooms have 
been employed Avith corresponding success. The adjutant's report for 
the day sums up 1,073 rank and file, and but two on the sick list. On 
a platform, a desk, beneath the shade of the grove, holds a Bible and 



86 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

Prayer-book, that await the arrival, at ten o'clock, of the Methodist 
preacher, who is to perforin Divine service. The green uniforms of the 
" Hibernian Guards," and the gray and light-blue dress of other com- 
panies, appertain to a better appointed sort of men than the lower 
division. 

There may be 2,000 men in Camp Moore — not more, and yet every 
authority gives us a difterent figure. The lowest estimate acknowledged 
for the two camps is 3,500 men, and The Picayune and other New 
Orleans papers still speak in glowing terms of the 5,000 heroes assem- 
bled in Tangipao. Although the muster there presents a tolerable show 
of ball-stoppers, it would require months of discipline to enable them to 
pass for soldiers, even at the North ; and besides that General Tracy 
has never had other experience than in militia duty, there is not, I think, 
a single West-Point officer in his whole command. The only hope of 
shaping such raw material to the purposes of war would naturally be 
by the admixture of a proper allowance of military experience, and 
until those possessing it shall be awarded to Camp Moore we must sigh 
over the delusion which pictures its denizens to the good people of New 
Orleans as " fellows ready for the fray." 

While the hampers are being ransacked, an express locomotive ar- 
rives from town with dispatches for General Tracy, who exclaims, when 
reading them, " Always too late 1" from which expression it is inferred 
that orders have been received to accept the just disbanded volunteers. 
The locomotive was hitched to the car and drew it back to the city. 
Our car was built in Massachusetts, the engine in Philadelphia, and 
the magnifier of its lamp in Cincinnati. What will the South do for 
such articles in future ? 

May 26. — In the evening, as I was sitting in the house of a gentle- 
man in the city, it was related, as a topic of conversation, that a very 
respectable citizen named Bibb had had a difficulty with three gentle- 
men, who insisted on his reading out the news for them from his paper, 
as he went to market in the early morning. Mr. Bibb had a revolver, 
" casually," in his pocket, and he shot one citizen dead on the spot and 
wounded the other two severely, if not mortally. " Great sympathy," 
I am told, " is felt for Mr. Bibb." There has been a skirmish some- 
where on the Potomac, but Bibb has done more business " on his own 
hook" than any of the belligerents up to this date ; and though I can 
scarcely say I sympathize with him, far be it from me to say that I do 
not respect him. 

One curious result of the civil war in its effects on the South will, 
probably, extend itself as the conflict continues — I mean the refusal of 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. S/ 

the employers to pay tlieir workmen, on the ground of inability. The 
natural consequence is much distress and misery. The English consul 
is harrassed by applications for assistance from mechanics and skilled 
laborers who are in a state bordering on destitution and starvation. 
They desire nothing better than to leave the country and return to their 
homes. All business, except tailoring for soldiers and cognate labors, is 
suspended. Money is not to be had. Bills on New York are worth 
little more than the paper, and the exchange against London is enor- 
mous — eighteen per cent, discount from the par value of the gold in 
bank, good drafts on England having been negotiated yesterday at 
ninety-two per cent. One house has been compelled to accept four per 
cent, on a draft on the Xorth, where the rate was usually from one- 
fourth per cent, to one-half per cent. There is some fear that the police 
force will be completely broken up, and the imagination refuses to guess 
at the result. The city schools will probably be closed — altogether 
things do not look well at New Orleans. When all their present diffi- 
culties are over, a struggle between the mob and the oligarchy, or those 
who have no property and those who have, is inevitable ; for one of the 
first acts of the legislature will probably be directed to establish some 
sort of qualification for the right of suffrage, relying on the force which 
will be at their disposal on the close of the war. As at New York, so 
at New Orleans. Universal sufi'rage is denounced as a curse, as corrup- 
tion legalized, confiscation organized. As I sat in a well-furnished club- 
room last night, listening to a most respectable, well-educated, intelligent 
gentleman descanting on the practices of "the Thugs" — an organized 
band who coolly and deliberately committed murder for the purpose of 
intimidating Irish and German voters, and were only put down by a 
vigilance committee, of which he was a member — I had almost to 
pinch myself to see that I was not the victim of a horrid nightmare. 

Monday J May 27. — The Washington Artillery went ofi" to-day to the 
wars — quo fas et gloria ducunt ; but I saw a good many of them in 
the streets after the body had departed — spirits who were disembodied. 
Their uniform is very becoming, not unlike that of our own foot artil- 
lery, and they have one battery of guns in good order. I looked in 
vain for any account of Mr. Bibb's little affair yesterday in the papers. 
Perhaps, as he is so very respectable, there will not be any reference to 
it at all. Indeed, in some conversation on the subject last night, it was 
admitted that when men were very rich they might find judges and 
jurymen as tender as Danae, and policemen as permeable as the waUs 
of her dungeon. The whole question now is, " What will be done with 
the blockade?" The Confederate authorities are acting with a high 



88 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

hand. An American vessel, the Ariel, which had cleared out of port 
with British subjects on board, has been overtaken, captured, and her 
crew have been put in prison. The ground is that she is owned in main 
by Black Republicans. The British subjects have received protection 
from the consul. Prizes have been made within a league of shore, and 
in one instance, when the captain protested, his ship was taken out to 
sea, and was then recaptured formally. I went round to several mer- 
chants to-day ; they were all gloomy and fierce. In fact, the blockade 
of Mobile is announced, and that of New Orleans has commenced, and 
men-of-war have been reported off the Pas-a-l'outre. The South is 
beginning to feel that it is being bottled up, all fermenting and frothing, 
and is somewhat surprised and angry at the natural results of its own 
acts, or, at least, of the proceedings which have brought about a state 
of war. Mr. Slidell did not seem at all contented with the telegrams 
from the North, and confessed that " if they had been received by way 
of Montgomery he should be alarmed." The names of persons liable 
for military service have been taken down in several districts, and Brit- 
ish subjects have been included. Several applications have been made 
to Mr. Mure, the consul, to interfere in behalf of men who, having 
enlisted, are now under orders to march, and who must leave their fam- 
ilies destitute if they go away ; but he has, of course, no power to exer- 
cise any influence in such cases. The English journals to the 4th of 
May have arrived here to-day. It is curious to see how quaint in their 
absurdity the telegrams become when they have reached the age of 
three weeks. I am in the hapless position of knowing, without being 
able to remedy, the evils from this source, for there is no means of send- 
ing through to New York political information of an 3^ sort by telegraph. 
The electric fluid may be the means of blasting and blighting many 
reputations, as there can be no doubt the revelations which the govern- 
ment at "Washington will be able to obtain through the files of the dis- 
patches it has seized at the various offices, wdll compromise some whose 
views have recently undergone remarkable changes. It is a hint which 
may not be lost on governments in Europe when it is desirable to know 
friends and foes hereafter, .*^.nd despotic rulers will not be slow to take a 
hint from " the land of liberty." 

Orders have been issued by the governor to the tow-boats to take 
out the English vessels by the south-west passage, and it is probable 
they will all get through without any interruption on the part of the 
blockading force. It may be imagined that the owners and consignees 
of cargoes from England, China, and India, which are on their way 
here, are not at all easy in their minds. Two of the Washington artillery 



PICTURES OF SOUTHEEX LIFE. 89 

died in the train on tlieir way to that undefinable region called " the 
seat of war/' 

May 28. — The Southern states have already received the assistance 
of several thousands of savages, or red men, and " the warriors" are 
actually engaged in pursuing the United States troops in Texas, in 
conjunction with the state volunteers. A few days ago a deputation 
of the chiefs of the Five Nations, Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, 
Comanches, and others, passed through New Orleans on their way to 
Montgomery, where they hoped to enter into terms with the govern- 
ment for the transfer of their pension list and other responsibilities 
from Washington, and to make such arrangements for their property 
and their rights as would justify them in committing their fortunes to 
the issue of w^ar. These tribes can turn out twenty thousand warriors, 
scalping-knives, tomahawks, and all. The chiefs and principal men are 
all slave-holders. 

May 2^. — Anew "affair" occurred this afternoon. The servants 
of the house in which I am staying were alarmed by violent screams in 
a house in the adjoining street, and by the discharge of firearms — an 
occurrence which, like the cry of "murder" in the streets of Havana, 
clears the streets of all wayfarers, if they be wise, and do not wish to 
stop stray bullets. The cause is thus stated in the journals : 

Sad Family Affair. — Last evening, at the residence of Mr. A. P. Withers, in 
Nayades street, near Thaha, Mr. Withers shot and dangerously wounded his step- 
son, Mr. A. F. W. Matlier. As the poHce tell it, the nature of the aifair was this : 
The two men were in the parlor, and talking about the Washington artillery, which 
left on Monday for Virginia. Mather denounced the artillerists in strong language, 
and his stepfather denied what he said. Violent language followed, and, as Withers 
says, Mather drew a pistol and shot at him once, not hitting him. He snatched up 
a Sharp's revolver that was lying near and fired four times at his stepson. The 
latter fell at the third fire, and as he was falling Withers fired a fourth time, the 
bullet wounding the hand of Mrs. Withers, wife of one and mother of the other, 
she having rushed in to interfere, and she being the only witness of the affair. 
Withers immediately went out into the street and voluntarily surrendered himself 
to Officer Casson, the first officer he met. He was locked up. Three of his shots 
hit Mather, two of them in the breast. Last night Mather was not expected to 
live. 

Another difficulty is connected with the free colored people who 
may be found in prize ships. Read and judge of the conclusion : 

What shall be done with them? On the 28th inst.. Captain G. W. Gregor, of 
the privateer Calhoun, brought to the station of this district about ten negro sailors, 
claiming to be free, found on board the brigs Panama, John Adams, and Mermaid. 

The recorder sent word to the marshal of the confederate states that said ne- 



90 PICrURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

groes were at liis disposition. The marshal refused to receive them or have any 
thing to do with them, whereupon the recorder gave the following decision : 

Though I have no authority to act in the case, I think it is my duty as a magis- 
trate and good citizen to take upon myself, in this critical moment, the responsibil- 
ity of keeping the prisoners in custody, firmly beheving it would not only be bad 
policy, but a dangerous one, to let them loose upon the community. 

The following dispatch was sent by the recorder to the Hon. J. P. 
Benjamin : 

New Orleans, May 29. 
To J. P. Benjamin, Richmond — Sir : Ten free negroes taken by a privateer from 
on board three vessels returning to Boston, from a whaling voyage, have been de- 
livered to me. The marshal refuses to take charge of them. What shaU I do 
with them ? RespectfuUy, A. BLACHB, 

Recorder, Second District. 

The monthly statement I inclose of the condition of the New Or- 
leans banks on the 25th inst., must be regarded as a more satisfactory 
exhibit to their depositors and shareholders, though of no greater 
benefit to the commercial community in this its hour of need than the 
tempting show of a pastrycook's window to the famished street poor. 
These institutions show assets estimated at $54,000,000, of which 
$20,000,000 are in specie and sterling exchange, to meet $25,000,000 
of liabilities, or more than two for one. But, with this apparent am- 
plitude of resources, the New Orleans banks are at a dead-lock, afford- 
ing no discounts and buying no exchange — the latter usually their 
greatest source of profit in a mart 'which ships so largely of cotton, 
suofar, and flour, and the commercial movement of which for not over 
nine months of the year is the second in magnitude among the cities 
of the old Union. 

As an instance of the caution of their proceedings, I have only to 
state that a gentleman of wealth and the highest respectability, who 
needed a day or two since some money for the expenses of an unex- 
pected journey, was compelled, in order to borrow of these banks the 
sum of $1,500, to hypothecate, as security for his bill at sixty days, 
$10,000 of bonds of the Confederate states, and for which a month 
ago he paid par in coin — a circumstance which reflects more credit 
upon the prudence of the banks than upon the security pledged for 
this loan. 



Natchez, Miss., June 14, 1861. 
On the morning of the 3d of June I left New Orleans, in one of the 
steamers proceeding up the Mississippi, along that fertile but uninterest- 
ing region of reclaimed swamp lands, called " the coast," which extends 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 91 

along both banks for one hundred and twenty miles above the city. 
It is so called from the name given to it, " La Cote," by the early 
French settlers. Here is the favored land — alas ! it is a fever-land, too 
— of sugar-cane and Indian corn. To those who have very magnificent 
conceptions of the Mississippi, founded on mere arithmetical computa- 
tions of leagues, or vague geographical data, it may be astonishing, but 
it is nevertheless true, the Mississippi is artificial for many hundreds of 
miles. I*fature has, of course, poured out the waters, but man has made 
the banks. By a vast system of raised embankments, called levees, the 
river is constrained to abstain from overflowing the swamps, now drain- 
ed, and green with wealth-producing crops. At the present moment 
the surface of the river is several feet higher than the land at each side, 
and the steamer moves on a level with the upper stories, or even the 
roofs of the houses, reminding one of such scenery as could be witnessed 
in the old days of treckshuyt in Holland. The river is not broader than 
the Thames at Gravesend, and is quite as richly colored. But then it 
is one hundred and eighty feet deep, and for hundreds of miles it has 
not less that one hundred feet of water. Thus deeply has it scooped 
into the rich clay and marl in its course : but as it flows out to join the 
sea, it throws down the vast precipitates which render the bars so shift- 
ing and difficult, and bring the mighty river to such a poor exit. A few 
miles above the wharfs and large levees of the city, the country really 
appears to be a sea of light green, with shores of forest in the distance, 
about two miles away from the bank. This forest is the uncleared land, 
extending for a considerable way back, which each planter hopes to 
take into culture one day or other, and which he now uses to provide 
timber for his farm. Xear the banks are houses of wood, with porti- 
coes, pillars, verandahs, and sun-shades, generally painted white and 
green. There is a great uniformity of style, but the idea aimed at 
seems to be that of the old French chateau, with the addition of a col- 
onnade around the ground story. These dwellings are generally in the 
midst of small gardens, rich in semi-tropical vegetation, with glorious 
magnolias, now in full bloom, rising in their midst, and groves of live- 
oak interspersed. The levee is as hard and dry as the bank of a canal. 
Here and there it is propped up by wooden revetements. Between it 
and the uniform line of palings, which guards the river face of the plan- 
tations, there is a carriage-road. In the enclosure, near each residence, 
there is a row of small wooden huts, whitewashed, in which live the 
negroes attached to the service of the f;imily. Outside the negroes who 
labor in the fields are quartered, in similar constructions, which are like 
the small single huts, called " Maltese," which were plentiful in the 



92 PICTURES OF SOUTnEKN LIFE. 

Crimea. They are rarely furnished with windows ; a wooden slide or 
a grated space admits such light and air as they want. One of the 
most striking features of the landscape is, its utter want of life. There 
were a few horsemen exercising in a field, some gigs and buggies along 
the levee roads, and the little groups at the numerous watering-places, 
jrenerally containing a few children in tom-fool costumes, as zouaves, 
chasseurs, or some sort of infantry ; but the slaves who were there had 
come down to look after luggage or their masters. There were no 
merry, laughing, chattering gatherings of black fac(3s and white teeth, 
such as we hear about. Indeed, the negroes are not allowed hereabouts 
to stir out of their respective plantations, or to go along the road with- 
out passes from their owners. The steamer J. L. Cotton, which was 
not the less popular, perhaps, because she had the words " low pressure" 
conspicuous on her paddle-boxes, carried a fair load of passengers, most of 
whom were members of Creole families living on the coast. The proper 
meaning of the word " Creole" is very different from that which we at- 
tach to it. It signifies a person of Spanish or French descent, born in 
Louisiana or in the southern or tropical countries. The great majority 
of the planters here are French Creoles, and it is said they are kinder 
and better masters than Americans or Scotch, the latter being consider- 
ed the most severe. Intelligent on most subjects, they are resolute in 
the belief that England must take their cotton or perish. Even the 
keenest of their financiers, Mr. Forstall, an Irish Creole, who is repre- 
sentative of the house of Baring, seems inclined to this faith, though he 
is prepared with many ingenious propositions, which w^ould rejoice Mr. 
Gladstone's inmost heart, to raise money for the Southern Confederacy 
and make them rich exceedingly. One thing has rather puzzled him. 
M. Baroche, who is in New Orleans, either as a looker-on or as an ac- 
credited employe of his father or of the French government, suggested 
to him that it would not be possible for all the disposable mercantile 
marine of England and France together to carry the cotton crop, which 
hitherto gave employment to a great number of American vessels, now 
tabooed by the South, and the calculations seem to bear out the truth 
of the remark. Be that as it may, Mr. Forstall is quite prepared to show 
that the South can raise a prodigious revenue by a small direct taxation, 
for which the machinery already exists in every parish of the state, 
and that the North must be prodigiously damaged in the struggle, if 
not ruined outright. One great source of strength in the South is, its 
readiness — at least, its professed alacrity — to yield any thing that is 
asked. There is unbounded confidence in Mr. Jefferson Davis. Where- 
ever I go, the same question is asked : " Well, sir, what do you think 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 93 

of our President ? Does he not strike you as being a very able man ?" 
In finance he is trusted as much as in war. When he sent orders to 
the New Orleans banks, some time ago, to suspend specie payment, he 
exercised a power which could not be justified by any reading of the 
Southern constitution. All men applauded. The President of the 
United States is far from receiving any such support or confidence, and 
it need not be said any act of his, of the same nature as that of Mr. 
Davis, would have created an immense outcry against him. But the 
South has all the unanimity of a conspiracy, and its unanimity is not 
greater than its confidence. One is rather tired of endless questions, 
" Who can conquer such men ?" But the question should be, " Can 
the North conquer us?" Of the fustian about dying in their tracks and 
fighting till every man, woman and child is exterminated, there is a 
great deal too much, but they really believe that the fate which Poland 
could not avert, to which France, as well as the nations she overran, 
bowed the head, can never reach them. With their faithful negroes to 
raise their corn, sugar and cotton while they are at the wars, and Eng- 
land and France to take the latter and pay them for it, they believe 
they can meet the American world in arms. A glorious future opens 
before them. Illimitable fields, tilled by multitudinous negroes, open 
on their vision, and prostrate at the base of the mountain of cotton, 
from which they rule the kings of the earth, the empires of Europe 
shall lie, with all their gold, their manufactures, and their industry, cry- 
ing out, " Pray give us more cotton ! All we ask is more !" 

But here is the boat stopping opposite Mr. Roman's — ex-governor 
of the state of Louisiana, and ex-commissioner of the Confederate gov- 
ernment at Montgomery to the government of the United States at 
Washington. Not very long ago he could boast of a very handsome 
garden — the French Creoles love gardens — Americans and English do 
not much affect them; when the Mississippi was low one fine day, levee 
and all slid down the bank into the maw of the riv^er, and were carried 
oflf. This is what is called the " caving in" of a bank; when the levee 
is broken through at high water it is said that a " crevasse" has taken 
place. The governor, as he is called — once a captain always a captain 
— has still a handsome garden, however, though his house has been 
brought unpleasantly near the river. His mansion and the out-offices 
stand in the shade of magnoUas, green oaks, and other Southern trees. 
To the last Governor Roman was a Unionist, but when his state went 
he followed her, and now he is a Secessionist for life and for death, not 
extravagant in his hopes, but calm and resolute, and fully persuaded 
that in the end the South must win. As he does not raise any cotton. 



94 riCTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

the consequences for him will be extremely serious should sugar be 
greatly depreciated ; but the consumption of that article in America is 
very large, and, though the markets in the North and West are cut off, 
it is hoped, as no imported sugar can find its way into the states, that 
the Sonth will consume all its own produce at a fair rate. The gover- 
nor is a very good type of the race, which is giving way a little before 
the encroachments of the Anglo-Saxons, and he possesses all the ease, 
candid manner, and suavity of the old French gentleman — of that school 
in which there are now few masters or scholars. He invited me to visit 
the negro quarters. " Go where you like, do what you please, ask any 
questions. There is nothing we desire to conceal." As we passed the 
house, two or three young women flitted past in snow-white dresses 
Tvith pink sashes, and no doubtful crinolines, but their head-dresses were 
not en regie — handkerchiefs of a gay color. They were slaves going off 
to a dance at the sugar-house ; but they were indoor servants, and 
therefore better off, in the w^ay of clothes than their fellow slaves who 
labor in the field. On approaching a high paling at the rear of the 
house the scraping of fiddles was audible. It was Sunday, and Mr. 
Roman informed me that he gave his negroes leave to have a dance on 
that day. The planters who are not Catholics rarely give any such 
indulgence to their slaves, though they do not always make them work 
on that day, and sometimes let them enjoy themselves on the Saturday 
afternoon. Entering a wicket gate, a quadrangular enclosure, lined with 
negro huts, lay before us. The bare ground was covered with litter of 
various kinds, amid which pigs and poultry were pasturing. Dogs, 
puppies, and curs of low degree scampered about on all sides ; and deep 
in a pond, swinking in the sun, stood some thirty or forty mules, en- 
joying their day of rest. The huts of the negroes belonging to the 
personal service of the house were separated from the negroes engaged in 
field labor by a close wooden paling ; but there was no difterence in the 
shape and size of their dwellings, which consisted generally of one large 
room, divided by a partition occasionally into two bedrooms. Outside 
the whitewash gave them a cleanly appearance ; inside they were dingy 
and squalid — no glass in the windows, swarms of flies, some clothes 
hanging on nails in the boards, dressers with broken crockery, a bed- 
stead of rough carpentry; a fireplace in which, hot as w^as the day, a 
log lay in embers ; a couple of tin cooking utensils ; in the obscure, the 
occupant, male or female, awkward and shy before strangers, and silent 
till spoken to. Of course there were no books, for the slaves do not 
read. They all seemed respectful to their master. AVe saw very old men 
and very old women, who were the canker-w^onns of the estate, and w^ere 



PICTURES OF SOUTHEKN LIFE. 95 

dozing away into eternity mindful only of hominy, and pig, and molasses. 
Two negro fiddlers were working their bows with energy in front of one 
of the huts, and a crowd of little children were listening to the music, 
and a few grown-up persons of color — some of them from the adjoining 
plantations. The children are generally dressed in a little sack of coarse 
calico, which answers all reasonable purposes, even if it be not very 
clean. It might be an interesting subject of inquiry to the natural 
philosophers who follow crinology to determine why it is that the hair 
of the infant negro, or of the child up to six or seven years of age, is 
generally a fine red russet, or even gamboge color, and gradually darkens 
into dull ebon. These little bodies were mostly large-stomached, well 
fed, and not less happy than freeborn children, although much more 
valuable — for once they get over juvenile dangers, and advance toward 
nine or ten years of age, they rise in value to £100 or more, even in 
times when the market is low and money is scarce. The women were 
not very well-favored, except one yellow girl, whose child was quite 
white, with fair hair and light eyes ; and the men Avere disguised in 
such strangely cut clothes, their hats and shoes and coats were so won- 
derfully made, that one could not tell what they were like. On all 
faces there was a gravity which must be the index to serene content- 
ment and perfect comfort, for those who ought to know best declare 
they are the happiest race in the world. It struck me more and more, 
as I examined the expression of the faces of the slaves all over the 
South, that deep dejection is the prevailing, if not universal, character- 
istic of the race. Let a physiognomist go and see. Here there were 
abundant evidences that they were well treated, for they had good 
clothing of its kind, good food, and a master who wittingly could do 
them no injustice, as he is, I am sure, incapable of it. Still, they all 
looked exceedingly sad, and even the old woman who boasted that she 
had held her old master in her arms when he was an infant, did not 
look cheerful, as the nurse at home would have done, at the sight of 
her ancient charge. The precincts of the huts were not clean, and the 
enclosure was full of weeds, in which poultry — the perquisites of the 
slaves — were in full possession. The negroes rear domestic birds of all 
kinds, and sell eggs and poultry to their masters. The money they 
spend in purchasing tobacco, molasses, clothes and flour — whisky, their 
great delight, they must not have. Some seventy or eighty hands were 
quartered in this part of the estate. The silence which reigned in the 
huts as soon as the fiddlers had gone off" to the sugar-house was pro- 
found. Before leaving the quarter I was taken to the hospital, whicli 
v.-as in charge of an old negress. The naked rooms contained several 



96 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

flock beds on rough stands, and five patients, three of whom were women. 
They sat hstlessly on the beds, looking out into space; no books to 
amuse them, no conversation — nothing but their own dull thoughts, if 
they had any. They were suffering from pneumonia and swellings of 
the glands of the neck; one man had fever. Their medical attendant 
visits them regularly, and each plantation has a practitioner, who is 
engaged by the term for his services. Negroes have now only a nominal 
value in the market — that is, the price of a good field band is as high 
as ever, but there is no one to buy him at present, and no money to 
pay for him, and the trade of the slave-dealers is very bad. The mena- 
geries of the " Virginia negroes constantly on sale. Money advanced 
on all descriptions of property," etc., must be full — their pockets empty. 
This question of price is introduced incidentally in reference to the 
treatment of negroes. It has often been said to me that no one will ill- 
use a creature worth £300 or £400, but that is not a universal rule. 
Much depends on temper, and many a hunting-field could show that if 
value be a guarantee for good usage, the slave is more fortunate than 
his fellow chattel, the horse. If the growth of sugar-cane, cotton and 
corn, be the great end of man's mission on earth, and if all masters were 
like Governor Roman, slavery might be defended as a natural and 
innocuous institution. Sugar and cotton are, assuredly, two gi-eat agen- 
cies in this latter world. The older got on well enough without them. 

The scraping of the fiddles attracted us to the sugar-house, a large 
brick building with a factory-looking chimney, where the juice of the 
cane is expressed, boiled, granulated, and prepared for the refiner. In 
a space of the floor unoccupied by machinery some fifteen women and 
as many men were assembled, and four couples were dancing a kind 
of Irish jig to the music of the negro musicians — a double shuffle and 
a thumping ecstasy, with loose elbows, pendulous paws, and angulated 
knees, heads thrown back, and backs arched inwards — a glazed eye, 
intense solemnity of mien, worthy of the minuet in Don Giovanni. At 
this time of year there is no work done in the sugar-house, but when 
the crushing and boiling are going on the labor is intense, and all the 
hands work in gangs night and day ; and, if the heat of the fires be 
superadded to the temperature in September, it may be conceded that 
nothing but " involuntary servitude" could go through the toil and 
suffering required to produce sugar for us. This is not the place for 
an account of the processes and machinery used in the manufacture, 
wdiich is a scientific operation, greatly improved by recent discoveries 
and apparatus. 

In the afternoon the governor's son came in from the company 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 97 

wbich lie commands. He has been camping out witli them to accus- 
tom them to the duties of actual war, and he told me that all his men 
were most zealous and exceedhigly proficient. They are all of the 
best families around — planters, large and small, their sons and relatives, 
and a few of the Creole population, who arc engaged as hoopers and 
stavemakers. One of the latter had just stained his hands with blood. 
He had reason to believe a culpable intimacy existed between his wife 
and his foreman. A circumstance occurred which appeared to confirm 
his worst suspicions. He took out his firelock, and, meeting the man, 
he shot him dead without uttering a word, and then delivered himself 
up to the authorities. It is probable his punishment will be exceed- 
ingly light, as divorce suits and actions for damages are not in favor in 
this part of the world. Although the people are Roman Catholics, it 
is by no means unusual to permit relations within the degree of con- 
sanguinity forbidden by the church to intermarry, and the elastic na- 
ture of the rules which are laid down by the priesthood in that respect 
would greatly astonish the orthodox in Ireland or Bavaria. The 
whole of the planters and their dependents along " the coast" are in 
arms. There is but one sentiment, as far as I can see, among them, 
and that is, " We will never submit to the North." In the evening, 
several officers of M. Alfred Roman's company and neighbors came in, 
and out under the shade of the trees, in the twilight, illuminated by 
the flashing fireflies, politics were discussed — all on one side, of course, 
with general conversation of a more agreeable character. The cus- 
tomary language of the Creoles is French, and several newspapers in 
French are published in the districts around us ; but they speak Eng- 
lish fluently. 

Next morning, early, the governor was in the saddle and took me 
round to see his plantation. We rode through alleys formed by the 
tail stalks of the maize, out to the wide, unbroken fields — hedgeless, 
unwalled, where the green cane was just learning to wave its long 
shoots in the wind. Along the margin in the distance there is an un- 
broken boundary of forest extending all along the swamp lands, and 
two miles in depth. From the river to the forest there is about a mile 
and a half or more of land of the very highest quality — unfathomable, 
and producing from one to one and a half hogshead an acre. Away in 
the midst of the crops were white -looking masses, reminding me of 
sepoys and sowars as seen in Indian fields in the morning sun on many 
a march. As we rode toward them we overtook a cart with a large 
cask, a number of tin vessels, a bucket of molasses, a pail of milk, and 
a tub full of hominy or boiled Indian corn. The cask contained water 
5 



98 ■ PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

for tlie use of tlie negroes, and the other vessels held the materials for 
their breakfast, in addition to which they generally have each a dried 
fish. The food looked ample and wholesome, such as any laboring man 
would be well content with every day. There were three gangs at 
work in the fields. One of men, with twenty mules and ploughs, was 
engaged in running through the farrows between the canes, cutting up 
the weeds and clearing away the grass, which is the enemy of the 
growing shoot. The mules are of a fine, large, good-tempered kind, 
and understand their work almost as well as the drivers, who are usu- 
ally the more intelligent hands on the plantation. The overseer, a 
sharp-looking Creole, on a lanky pony, whip in hand, superintends their 
labors, and, after a few directions and a salutation to the governor, 
rode off" to another part of the farm. The negroes when spoken to 
saluted us, and came forward to shake hands — a civility which must 
not be refused. With the exception of crying to their mules, however, 
they kept silence when at work. Another gang consisted of forty 
men, who were hoeing out the grass in Indian corn — easy work 
enough. The third gang was of thirty-six or thirty-seven women, who 
were engaged in hoeing out cane. Their clothing seemed heavy for 
the climate, their shoes ponderous and ill-made, so as to wear away the 
feet of their thick stockings. Coarse straw hats and bright cotton 
handkerchiefs protected their heads from the sun. The silence which 
I have already alluded to prevailed among these gangs also — not a 
sound could be heard but the blows of the hoe on the heavy clods. 
In the rear of each gang stood a black overseer, with a heavy-thonged 
whip over his shoulder. If " Alcibiades" or " Pompey," were called 
out he came with outstretched hand to ask " how do you do," and 
then returned to his labor; but the ladies were coy, and scarcely look- 
ed up from under their flapping chapeaxix de paille at their visitors. 
Those who are mothers leave their children in the charge of certain 
old women, unfit for any thing else, and " suckers," as they are called, 
are permitted to go home to give the infants the breast at appointed 
periods in the day. I returned home multa mecum revoUns. After 
breakfast, in spite of a very fine sun, which was not unworthy of a 
January noon in Cawnpore, we drove forth to visit some planter friends 
of M. Roman, a few miles down the river. The levee road is dusty, 
but the gardens, white railings and neat houses of the planters looked 
fresh and clean enough. There is a great difference in the appearance 
of the slaves' quarters. Some are neat, others are dilapidated and 
mean. As a general rule, it might be said that the goodness of the 
cottages was in proportion to the frontage of each plantation toward 



riiTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 99 

the river, wliich is a fair index to the size of the estate wherever the 
river bank is straight. The lines of the estates are drawn perpendicu- 
larly to the banks, so that the convexity or concavity of the bends de- 
termines the frontage of the plantation. 

The absence of human beings in the fields and on the roads was re- 
markable. The gangs at work were hidden in the deep corn, and not 
a soul met us on the road for many miles except one planter in his gig. 
At one place we visited a very handsome garden, laid out with hot- 
houses and conservatories, ponds full of magnificent Victoria Regia in 
flower, orange-trees, and many tropical plants, native and foreign, date 
and other palms. The proprietor owns an extensive sugar refinery. 
We visited his factory and mills, but the heat from the boilers, which 
seemed too much even for the all but naked negroes who were at work, 
did not tempt us to make a very long sojourn inside. The ebony faces 
and polished black backs of the slaves were streaming with perspira- 
tion as they toiled over boiler, vat and centrifugal driers. The good 
refiner was not gaining much at present, for sugar has been falling 
7'apidly in New Orleans, and the 300,000 barrels produced annually 
in the South will fall short in the yield of profit, which, on an average, 
may be taken- at £11 a hogshead, without counting the molasses, for 
the planter. All the planters hereabouts have sown an unusual quantity 
of Indian corn, so as to have food for the negroes if the war lasts, 
without any distress from inland or sea blockade. The absurdity of 
supposing that a blockade can injure them in the way of supply is a 
favorite theme to descant upon. They may find out, however, that it 
is no contemptible means of warfare. At night, after our return, a 
large bonfire was lighted on the bank to attract the steamer to call for 
my luggage, which she was to leave at a point on the opposite shore, 
fourteen miles higher up, and I perceived that there are regular patrols 
and watchmen at night who look after levees and the negroes ; a num- 
ber of dogs are also loosed, but I am assured by a gentleman who has 
written me a long letter on the subject from Montgomery, that these 
dogs do not tear the negroes ; they are taught merely to catch and 
mumble them, to treat them as a retriever well broken uses a wild 
duck. Next day I left the hospitable house of Governor Roman, full 
of regard for his personal character and of his wishes for his happiness 
and prosperity, but assuredly in no degree satisfied that even with 
his care and kindness the "domestic institution" can be rendered 
tolerable or defensible, if it be once conceded that the negro is a 
human being with a soul — or with the feelings of a man. On those 
points there are ingenious hypotheses and subtle argumentations in 



100 PICTUKES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

print " down South " which do much to comfort the consciences of 
the anthropropietors. The negro skull wont hold as many ounces of 
shot as the white man's. Can there be a more potent proof that the 
white man has a right to sell and to own a creature who carries a 
smaller charge of snipe-dust in his head? He is plantigrade, and 
curved as to the tibia ! Cogent demonstration that he was made ex- 
pressly to work for the arch-footed, straight-tibiaed Caucasian. He has 
a rete mucosum and a colored pigment. Surely, he cannot have a soul 
of the same color as that of an Italian or a Spaniard, far less of a flaxen- 
haired Saxon ! See these peculiarities in the frontal sinus — in sinciput 
or occiput ! Can you doubt that the being with a head of that nature 
Avas made only to till, hoe, and dig for another race ? Besides, the 
Bible says that he is a son of Ham, and prophecy must be carried out 
in the rice-swamps, sugar-canes, and maize-fields of the Southern Con- 
federation. It's flat blasphemy to set yourself against it. Our Saviour 
sanctions slavery because he does not say a word against it, and it's 
very likely that St. Paul was a slave-owner. Had cotton and sugar 
been known, he might have been a planter ! Besides, the negro is 
civilized by being carried away from Africa and set to work, instead of 
idling in native inutility. What hope is there of Christianizing the 
African races except by the agency of the apostles from New Orleans, 
Mobile or Charleston, who sing the sweet songs of Zion Avith such 
vehemence and clamor so fervently for baptism in the waters of the 
" Jawdam?" If these high physical, metaphysical, moral and religious 
reasonings do not satisfy you, and you venture to be unconvinced and 
to say so, then I advise you not come within reach of a mass meeting 
of our citizens, who may be able to find a rope and a tree in the 
neighborhood. 

As we jog along in an easy rolling carriage drawn by a pair of stout 
horses, a number of white people meet us coming from the Catholic 
chapel of the parish, where they had been attending a service for the 
repose of the soul of a lady much beloved in the iieighborhood. The 
black people are supposed to have very happy souls, or to be as utteily 
lost as Mr. Shandy's homuncule was under certain circumstances, for I 
have failed to find that any such services are ever considered necessary 
in their case, although they may have been very good — or where it 
would be most desirable — very bad Catholics. My good young friend, 
clever, amiable, accomplished, who had a dark cloud of sorrow weigh- 
ing down his young life that softened him to almost feminine tender- 
ness, saw none of these things. He talked of foreign travel in days 
gone by — of Paris and poetry, of England and London hotels, of the 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 3 01 

great Careme, and of Alexis Soyer, of pictures, of politics — de omni 
scibili. The storm gathered overhead, and the rain fell in torrents — 
the Mississippi flowed lifelessly by — not a boat on its broad surface. 
The road passed by plantations smaller and poorer than I have yet 
seen, belonging to small planters, with only some ten or twelve slaves 
all told. The houses were poor and ragged. At last we reached 
Governor Manning's place, and drove to the overseer's — a large heavy- 
eyed old man, who asked us into his house from out of the rain till the 
boat was ready — and the river did not look inviting — full of drift trees, 
swirls and mighty eddies. In the plain room in which we sat there 
was a volume of Spurgcon''s Sermons and of Baxter's works. " This 
rain will do good to the corn," said the overseer. " The niggers has 
had sceerce nothin' to do leetly, as they 'eve clearied out the fields 
pretty well." We drove down to a poor shed on the levee called the 
ferry-house, attended by one stout young slave who was to row me 
over. Two flut-bottomed skitfs lay on the bank. The negro groped 
under the shed and pulled out a piece of wood like a lai-ge spatula, 
some four feet long, and a small round pole a little longer. " What 
are those ?" quoth I, " Dem's oars, Massa," was my sable ferryman's 
brisk reply. " I'm very sure they are not; if they w^ere spliced they 
might make an oar between them." " Golly, and dat's the trute, 
Massa." " There, go and get oars, will you ?" While he was hunting 
about we entered the shed for shelter from the rain. We found " a 
solitary woman sitting" smoking a pipe by the ashes on the hearth, 
blear-eyed, low-browed, and morose — young as she was. She never 
said a word nor moved as we came in, sat and smoked, and looked 
through her gummy eyes at chickens about the size of sparrows, and 
at a cat not larger than a rat which ran about on the dirty floor. A 
little girl some four years of age, not over-dressed — indeed, half-naked, 
" not to put too fine a point upon it" — crawled out from under the 
bed, where she had hid on our approach. As she seemed incapable of 
appreciating the use of a small piece of silver presented to her — having 
no precise ideas on coinage or toffy — her parent took the obolus in 
charge with unmistakable decision; but still she would not stir a 
step to aid our Charon, who now insisted on the "key ov de oar- 
house." The little thing sidled off" and Imnted it out from the top of 
the bedstead, and I was not sorry to quit the company of the silent 
woman in black. Charon pushed his skiff into the water — there was a 
good deal of rain it — in shape a snuffer-dish, some ten feet long and a 
foot deep. I got in, and the conscious waters immediately began vigor- 
ously spurting through the cotton wadding wherewith the craft was 



102 PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 

caulked. Had we gone ont into tlie stream we should have had a 
swim for it, and they do say that the Mississippi is the most danger- 
ous river for that healthful exercise in the known world. " Why ! 
deuce take you" (I said, at least that, in my wrath), " don't you see 
the boat is leaky ?" " See it now for true, Massa. Nobody able to 
tell dat till Massa get in, tho'." Another skiff proved to be staunch. 
I bade good-bye to my friend, and sat down in my boat, which was 
soon forced up along the stream close to the bank, in order to get a 
good start across to the other side. The view, from my lonely posi- 
tion, was curious, but not at ah picturesque. The landscape had dis- 
appeared at once. The world was bounded on both sides by a high 
bank, and was constituted by a broad river — just as if one were sailing 
down an open sewer of enormous length and breadth. Above the bank 
rose, however, the tops of tall trees and the chimneys of sugar-houses. 
A row of a quarter of an hour brought us to the levee on the other 
side. I ascended the bank, and directly in front of me, across the 
road, appeared a carriage gateway and wickets of wood, painted white 
in a line of park palings of the same material, which extended up aud 
down the road far as the eye could follow, and guarded wide-spread 
fields of maize and sugar-cane. An avenue of trees, with branches 
close set, drooping and overarching a walk paved with red brick, led 
to the house, the porch of which was just visible at the extremity of 
the lawn, with clustering flowers, rose, jessamine and creepers clinging 
to the pillars supporting the verandah. The proprietor, who had 
espied my approach, issued forth with a section of sable attendants in 
his rear, and gave me a hearty welcome. The house was larger and 
better than the residences even of the richest planters, though it was 
in need of some little repair, and had been built perhaps fifty years 
ago, in the old Irish fashion, and who built well, ate well, drank well, 
and, finally, paid very well. The view from the belvedere was one of 
the most striking of its kind in the world. If an English agriculturist 
could see six thousand acres of the finest land in one field, unbroken 
by hedge or boundary, and covered with the most magnificent crops of 
tasselling Indian corn and sprouting sugar-cane, as level as a billiard- 
table, he would surely doubt his senses. But here is literally such a 
sight. Six thousand acres, better tilled than the finest patch in all the 
Lothians, green as Meath pastures, which can be cultivated for a hun- 
dred years to come without requiring manure, of depth practically un- 
limited, and yielding an average profit on what is sold off it of at least 
£20 an acre at the old prices and usual yield of sugar. Rising up in 
the midst of the verdure are the white lines of the negro cottages and 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 103 

the plantation offices and sugar-houses, which look like large public 
edifices in the distance. And who is the lord of all this fair domain ? 
The proprietor of Houmas and Orange-grove is a man, a self-made one, 
who has attained his apogee on the bright side of half a century, after 
twenty-five years of successful business. 

When my eyes " uncurtained the early morning," I might have 
imagined myself in the magic garden of Cherry and Fair Star, so in- 
cessant and multifarious were the carols of the birds, which were the 
only happy colored people I saw in my Southern tour, notwithstanding 
the assurances of the many ingenious and candid gentlemen who at- 
tempted to prove to me that the palm of terrestrial felicity must be 
awarded to their negroes. As I stepped through my window upon the 
verandah, a sharp chirp called my attention to a mocking-bird perched 
upon a rose-bush beneath, whom my presence seemed to annoy to such 
a degree that I retreated behind my curtain, whence I observed her 
fiight to a nest, cunningly hid in a creeping-rose trailed around a neigh- 
boring column of the house, where she imparted a breakfast of spiders 
and grasshoppers to her gaping and clamorous offspring. While I was 
admiring the motherly grace of this melodious fly-catcher, a servant 
brought coffee, and announced that the horses were ready, and that I 
might have a three hours' ride before breakfast. At Houmas les jours 
se suivent et se ressemblent^ and an epitome of the first will serve as a 
type for all, with the exception of such variations in the kitchen and 
produce as the ingenuity and exhaustless hospitality of my host were 
never tired of framing. 

If I regretted the absence of our English agriculturist when I beheld 
the 6,000 acres of cane and 1,600 of maize unfolded from the belve- 
dere the day previous, I longed for his presence still more when I saw 
those evidences of luxuriant fertility attained without the aid of phos- 
phates or guano. The rich Mississippi bottoms need no manure ; a 
rotation of maize with cane affords them the necessary recuperative 
action. The cane of last year's plant is left in stubble, and renews its 
growth this spring under the title of ratoons. When the maize is in 
tassel, cow-peas are dropped between the rows ; and when the lordly 
stalk, of which I measured many twelve and even fifteen feet in height, 
bearing three and sometimes four ears, is topped to admit the ripeninir 
sun, the pea-vine twines itself around the trunk, with a profusion of 
leaf and tendril that supplies the planter with the most desirable fodder 
for his mules in " rolling-time," which is their season of trial. Besides 
this, the corn-blades are culled and cured. These are the best meals 
of the Southern race-horse, and constitute nutritious hay without dust. 



104 PICTURES OF SOUTHEKN LIFE. 

The cow-pea is said to strengthen the system of the earth for the di- 
gestion of a new crop of sugar-cane. A sufficient quantity of the cane 
of last season is reserved from the mill, and laid in pits, where the ends 
of the stalk are carefully closed with earth until spring. After the 
ground has been plowed into ridges, these canes are laid in the endless 
tumuli, and not long after their interment, a fresh sprout springs at 
each joint of these interminable flutes. 

As we ride through the wagon roads, of which there are not less 
than thirty miles in this confederation of four plantations, held together 
by the purse and the life of our host — the unwavering exactitude of 
th« rows of cane, which run without deviation at right angles with the 
river down to the cane-brake, two miles off, proves that the negro would 
be a formidable rival in a ploughing match. The cane has been " laid 
by," that is, it requires no more labor, and will soon " lap," or close up, 
though the rows are seven feet apart. It feathers like a palm-top ; a 
stalk which was cut measured six feet, although from the ridges it was 
but waist high. On dissecting it near the root, we find five nascent 
joints not a quarter of an inch apart. In a few weeks more, the»e will 
shoot up like a spy-glass pulled out to its focus. 

There are four lordly sugar-houses, as the grinding-mills and boiling 
and crystalizing buildings are called, and near each is to be found the 
negro village, or " quarter," of that section of the plantation. A wide 
avenue, generally lined with trees, runs through these hamlets, which 
consist of twenty or thirty white cottages, single storied, and divided 
into four rooms. They are whitewashed, and at no great distance 
might be mistaken for New-England villages, with a town-hall which 
often serves in the latter for a " meeting-house," with occasionally a 
row of stores on the ground floor. 

The people, or " hands," are in the field, and the only inhabitants of 
the settlements are scores of " picaninnies," who seem a jolly congre- 
gation, under the care of crones, who here, as in an Indian village, act 
as nurses of the rising generation, destined from their births to the 
limits of a social Procrustean bed. The increase of property on the 
estate is about five per cent, per annum by the birth of children. 

We ride an hour before coming upon any " hands " at work in the 
fields. There is an air of fertile desolation that prevails in no other 
cultivated land. The regularity of the cane, its gardenlike freedom 
from grass or weeds, and the ad unguem finish and evenness of the fur- 
rows, would seem the work of nocturnal fiiiries, did we not realize the 
system of "gang labor" exemplified in a field we at length reach, where 
some thirty men and women were giving with the hoe the last polish 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 105 

to the earth around the cane, which would not be molested again until 
gathered for the autumnal banquet of the rolling-mills. 

Small drains and larger ditches occur at almost every step. All these 
flow into a canal, some fifteen feet wide, which runs between the plan- 
tation and the uncleared forest, and carries off the water to a " bayou " 
still more remote. There are twenty miles of deep ditching before the 
plantation, exclusive of the canal; and as this is the contract work of 
" Irish navvies," the sigh with which our host alluded to this heavy 
item in plantation expenses was expressive. The work is too severe for 
African thews, and experience has shown it a bad economy to overtask 
the slave. The sugar-planter lives in apprehension of four enemies. 
These are, the river when rising, drought, too much or unseasonable 
rain, and frost. The last calls into play all his energies, and tasks his 
utmost composure. In Louisiana, the cane never ripens as it does in 
Cuba, and they begin to grind as early in October as the amount of 
juices will permit. The question of a crop is one of early or late frost. 
With two months' exemption they rely, in a fair season, upon a hogs- 
head of 1,200 pounds to the acre ; and if they can run their mills until 
January, the increase is more than proportionate, each of its latter days 
in the earth adding saccharine virtue to the cane. 

At an average of a hogshead to the acre, each working hand is good 
for seven hogsheads a year, which, at last years' prices — eight cents per 
pound for ordinary qualities — would be a yield of £140 per annum for 
each full geld hand. 

Two hogsheads to the acre are not unfrequently, and even three have 
been, produced upon rich lands in a good season. Estimating the 
sugar at seventy per cent., and the refuse, bagasse, at thirty per cent., 
the latter figure would give us two tons and a quarter to the acre, which 
opens one's eyes to the tireless activity of nature in this semi-tropical 
region. 

From the records of Houmas, I find that in 1857, the year of its pur- 
chase at about £300,000, it yielded a gross of $304,000, say £63,000, 
upon the investment. 

In the rear of this great plantation there are 18,000 additional acres 
of cane-brake which are being slowly reclaimed, like the fields now re- 
joicing in crops, as fast as the furnace of the sugar-house calls for fuel. 
Were it desirable to accelerate the preparation of this reserve for plant- 
ing, it might be put in tolerable order in three years at a cost of £15 
per acre. We extended our ride into this jungle, on the borders of 
which, in the unfinished clearing, I saw plantations of " negro corn," 
the sable cultivators of which seem to have disregarded the symmetry 
5* 



106 PICTUEES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

practiced in the fields of their master, who allows them from Saturda}^ 
noon until Monday's cockcrow for the care of their private interests, 
and, in addition to this, whatever hours in the week they can econo- 
mize by the brisk fulfilment of their allotted tasks. Some of these 
patches are sown broadcast, and the corn has sprung up like Zouave 
tirailleurs in their most fantastic vagaries, rather than like the steady 
regimental drill of the cane and maize we have been traversing. 

Corn, chickens, and eggs, are, from time immemorial, the perquisites 
of the negro, who has the monopoly of the two last-named articles in 
all well-ordered Louisiana plantations. Indeed, the white man cannot 
compete with them in raising poultry, and our host was evidently de- 
lighted when one of his negroes, who had brought a dozen Muscovy 
ducks to the mansion, refused to sell them to him except for cash. 
" Bint, Louis, won't you trust me ? Am I not good for three dollars ?'' 
" G^od enough, raassa ; but dis nigger want de money to buy flour and 
coffee for him young family. Folks at Donaldsonville will trust raassa 
—won't trust nigger." The money was paid, and, as the negro left us, 
his master observed with a sly, humorous twinkle : " That fellow sold 
forty dollars' worth of corn last year, and all of them feed their chickens 
with my corn, and sell their own." 

There are three overseers at Houmas, one of whom superintends the 
whole plantation, and likewise looks after another estate of 8,000 acres, 
some twelve miles down the river, which our host added to his posses- 
sions two years since, at a cost of £150,000. In any part of the world, 

and in any calling, Mr. S ■ (I do not know if he would like to see 

his name in print) would be considered an able man. Mr. S. attends 
to most of the practice requiring immediate attention. We visited one 
of these hospitals, and found half-a-dozen patients ill of fever, rheuma- 
tism and indigestion, and apparently well cared for by a couple of stout 
nurses. The truckle bedsteads were garnished with mosquito bars, and 
I was told that the hospital is a favorite resort, which its inmates leave 
with reluctance. The pharmaceutical department was largely supplied 
with a variety of medicines, quinine and preparations of sulphites of 
iron. " Poor drugs," said Mr. S., " are a poor economy." 

I have mentioned engineering as one of the requisites of a competent 
overseer. To explain this I must observe that Houmas is esteemed 
very high land, and that in its cultivated breadth there is only a fall of 
eight feet to carry off its surplus matter. In the plantation of Governor 
Manning, Avhich adjoins it, an expensive steam-draining machine is em- 
ployed to relieve his fields of this incumbrance, which is effected by the 
revolutions of a fan-wheel some twenty feet in diameter, which laps up 



nCTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 107 

the water from a narrow trough into which all the drainage flows, and 
tosses it into an adjoining bayou. 

On Governor Manning's plantation we saw the process of clearing 
the primitive forest, of which 150 acres were sown in corn and cotton 
beneath the tall girdled trees that awaited the axe, while an equal 
breadth on the other side of a broad and deep canal was reluctantly 
yielding its tough and fibrous soil, from which the jungle had just been 
removed, t*o the ploughs of some fifty negroes, drawn by two mules 
each. Another season of lustration by maize or cotton, and the rank 
soil will be ready for the cane. 

The cultivation of sugar diflfers from that of cotton in requiring a 
much larger outlay of capital. There is little required for the latter 
besides negroes and land, which may be bought on credit, and a year's 
clothing and provisions. There is a gambling spice in the chances of 
a season which may bring wealth or ruin — a bale to the a'^jre, vrhich 
may produce 'Id. or only 5d. per lb. In a fair year the cotton planter 
reckons upon ten or twelve bales to the hand, in which case the annual 
yield of a negro varies from £90 to £120. His enemies are drought, 
excessive rains, the ball-worm, and the army-worm ; his best friend " a 
long picking season." 

There is more steadiness in the price of sugar, and a gi'eater cer- 
tainty of an average crop. But the cost of a sugar-house, with its mill, 
boilers, vacuum pans, centrifugal and drying apparatus, cannot be less 
than £10,000, and the consumption of fuel, thousands of cords of Avhich 
are cut up by the "hands," is enormous. There were cases of large 
fortunes earned by planting sugar with small beginnings, but these had 
chifly occurred among early settlers, who had obtained their hands for 
a song. A Creole, who recently died at the age of fifty-five, in the neigh- 
borhood, and who began with only a few thousand dollars, had amassed 
more than $1,000,000 in twenty-five years, and two of his sons — skil- 
ful planters — were likely to die each richer than his father. 

This year the prospects of sugar are dreary enough, at least while 
the civil war lasts, and my host, with a certainty of 6,500 hogsheads 
upon his various plantations, has none of a market. In this respect 
cotton has the advantage of keeping longer than sugar. At last year's 
prices, and with the United States protective tariff of 20 per cent, to 
shield him from foreign competition, his crop would have yielded him 
over £100,000. But all the sweet teeth of the Confederate States 
army can hardly " make a hole" in the 450,000 hogsheads which this 
year is expected to yield in Louisiana and Texas. Under the new 
tariff of the seceding states, the loss of protection to Louisiana alone 



108 PICTURES OF SOUTHEEN LIFE. 

may be stated, within bounds, at $8,000,000 per annum — which is 
making the planters pay pretty dear for their secession whistle. 

When I arrived at Houmas there was the greatest anxiety for rain, 
and over the vast level plateau every cloud was scanned with avidity. 
Now, a shower seemed bearing right down upon us, when it would 
break, like a flying soap-bubble, and scatter its treasures short of the 
parched fields in which we felt interested. The wind shifted, and hopes 
were raised that the next thunder-cloud would prove less illusory. 
But, no ! " Kenner' has got it all. On the fifth day, however, the 
hearts of all the planters and their parched fields were gladdened by 
half a day of general and generous rain, beneath which our host's cane 
fairly reeled and revelled. It was new safe for the season, and so was 
the corn. But " one man's nieat is another's poison,"' and we heard 
more than one *' Jeremiad" from those whose fields had not been 
placed in the condition which enabled those of our friend to carry off 
a potation of twelve hours of tropical rain with the ease of an alderman 
©r lord chancellor made happier or wiser by his three bottles of port. 

What is termed hacienda in Cuba, rancho in Mexico, and " planta- 
tion" elsewhere, is styled "habitation" by the Creoles of Louisiana, 
whose ancestors began more than a century ago to reclaim its jungles. 

At last '■'' venit summa dies et ineluctahile iempus.^^ I had seen as 
much as might be of the best phase of the great institution — less than 
I could desire of a most exemplary, kind-hearted, clear-headed, honest 
man. In the calm of a glorious summer evening, arrayed in all the 
splendor of scenery that belongs to dreams in Cloudland, where moun- 
tains of snow, peopled by " gorgons and hydras and chimseras dire," 
rise from seas of fire that bear black barks freighted with thunder be- 
fore the breeze of battle, we crossed the Father of Waters, waving an 
adieu to the good friend who stood on the shore, and turning ever back 
to the home we had left behind us. It was dark when the boat reached 
Donaldsonville on the opposite " coast." I should not be surprised to 
hear that the founder of this remarkable city, which once contained the 
archives of the state, now transferred to Baton Rouge, w^as a North 
Briton. There is a simplicity and economy in the plan of the place not 
unfavorable to that view, but the motives which induced Donaldson to 
found his Rome on the west of Bayou La Fourchc from Mississippi 
must be a secret to all time. Much must the worthy Scot have been 
perplexed by his neighbors, a long-reaching colony of Spanish Creoles 
who toil not and spin nothing but fishing-nets, and who live better than 
Solomon, and are probably as well dressed, minus the barbaric pearl 
and gold of the Hebrew potentate. Take the odd, little, retiring, 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 109 

modest houses which grow in the hollows of Scarborough, add to them 
the least imposing mansions in the natural town of Folkestone, cast 
them broadsown over the surface of the Essex marshes, plant a few 
trees in front of them, then open a few "cafe billards" of the camp sort 
along the main street, and you have done a very good Donaldsonville. 
A policeman welcomes us on the landing and does the honors of the 
market, which has a beggarly account of empty benches, a Texan bull 
done into beef, and a coffee-shop. The policeman is a tall, lean, west 
countryman ; his story is simple, and he has it to tell. He was one of 
Dan Rice's company — a travelling Astley. He came to Donaldsonville, 
saw, and was conquered by one of the Spanish beauties, married her, 
became tavern-keeper, failed, learned French, and was now constable 
of the parish. There was, however, a weight on his mind. He had 
studied the matter profoundly, but he was not near the bottom. How 
did the friends, relatives, and tribe of his wife live ? No one could say. 
They reared chickens, and they caught fish; when there was a pressure 
on the planters, they turned out to work for 6s. 6c?. a-day, but those 
were rare occasions. The policeman had become quite gray with ex- 
cogitating the matter, and he had " nary notion of how they did it." 
Donaldsonville has done one fine thing. It has furnished two com- 
panies of soldiers — all Irishmen — to the wars, and a third is in the 
course of formation. Not much hedging, ditching, or hard work these 
times for Paddy ! The blacksmith, a huge tower of muscle, claims ex- 
emption on the ground that " the divil a bit of him comes from Oire- 
land ; he nivir bird af it, barrin' from the buks he rid," and is doing 
his best to remain behind, but popular opinion is against him. As the 
steamer would not be up till toward dawn, or later, it was a relief to 
saunter through Donaldsonville to see society, which consisted of sev- 
eral gentlemen and various Jews playing games unknown to Hoyle, in 
oaken bar-rooms flanked by billiard tables. My good friend the doctor 
whom I had met at Houmas, who had crossed the river to see patients 
suffering from an attack of eucre, took us round to a little club, where 
I was introduced to a number of gentlemen, who expressed great pleas- 
ure at seeing me, shook hands violently, and walked away ; and finally 
we melted off into a cloud of mosquitos by the river bank, in a box 
prepared for them, which was called a bedroom. These rooms were 
built in wood on the stage close by the river. " Why can't I have one 
of those rooms ?" asked I, pointing to a large mosquito box. " It is 
engaged by ladies." How do you know ?" — " Parceque elles out 
envoye leurs hutinr It was delicious to meet the French " plunder" 
for baggage — an old phrase so nicely rendered in the mouth of the 



110 PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 

Mississippi boatman. Having passed a niglit of extreme discomfiture 
with the winged demons of the box, I was aroused toward dawn by 
the booming of the steam drum of the boat, dipped my head in water 
among drowned mosquitos, and went forth upon the landing. The 
policeman had just arrived. His eagle eye lighted upon a large flat, 
on the stern of which was inscribed, " Pork, corn, butter, beef," etc. 
Several spry citizens were also on the platform. After salutations and 
compliments, policeman speaks — " When did she come in ?" (meaning 
flat.) First citizen — "In the night, I guess." Second citizen — 
" There's a lot of whiskey aboord, too." Policeman (with pleased sur- 
prise) — "You never mean it ?" First citizen — "Yes, sir; one hundred 
and twenty gallons !" Policeman (inspired by a bright aspiration of 
patriotism) — "It's a west country boat ; \f\\y dori't the citizens seize 
it? And whiskey rising from l7c. to 35c. a gallon !" Citizens mur- 
mur approval, and I feel the whiskey part of the cargo is not safe. 
"Yes, sir," says citizen three, "they seize all our property at Cairey 
(Cairo), and I'm for making an example of this cargo." Further reasons 
for the seizure of the articles were adduced, and it is probable they 
were as strong as the whiskey, which has, no doubt, been drunk long 
ago on the very purest principles. In course of conversation with the 
committee of taste which had assembled, it was revealed to me that 
there was a strict watch kept over those boats which are freighted with 
whiskey forbidden to the slaves, and with principles, when they come 
from the west country, equally objectionable. " Did you hear, sir, 
of the chap over at Duncan Renmer's as was caught the other day ?" 
" No, sir, what was it ?" " Well, sir, he was a man that came here and 
went over among the niggers at Renmer's to buy their chickens from 
them. He was took up, and they found he'd a lot of money about 
him." " Well, of course, he had money to buy the chickens." "Yes, 
sir, but it looked suspic-ious. He was a west country fellow, tew, and 
he might have been tamperin' with 'em. Lucky for him he was not 
taken in the arternoon." " W^hy so ?" " Because if the citizens had 
been drunk they'd have hung him on the spot." The Acadia was now 
alongside, and in the early morning Donaldsonville receded rapidly 
into trees and clouds. To bed, and make amends for mosquito visits. 
On awaking, find that I am in the same place I started from ; at least, 
the river looks just the same. It is diflicult to believe that we have 
been going eleven miles an hour against the turbid river, which is of 
the same appearance as it was below — ^the same banks, bends, drift- 
wood and trees. 

Beyond the levees there were occasionally large clearings and plan- 



PICTURES OF SOUTHEEN LIFE. Ill 

tations of corn and cane, of which the former predominated. The 
houses of the planters were not so large or so good as those on the 
lower banks. Large timber rafts, navigated by a couple of men, who 
stood in the shade of a few upright boards, were encountered at long 
intervals. The river was otherwise dead. White egrets and blue 
herons rose from the marshes where the banks had been bored through 
by crayfish, or crevasses had been formed by the waters. The fields 
were not much more lively, but at every landing the whites who came 
down were in some sort of uniform, and a few negroes were in attend- 
ance to take in or deliver goods. There were two blacks on board in 
irons — captured runaways — and very miserable they looked at the 
thought of being restored to the bosom of the patriarchial family from 
which they had, no doubt, so prodigally eloped. I fear the fatted calf- 
skin would not be applied to their backs. The river is about half a 
mile wide here, and is upwards of 1,000 feet deep. The planters' 
houses in groves of pecan and mangolias, Avith verandah and belvedere, 
became more frequent as the steamer approached Baton Rouge, already 
visible in the distance over a high bank or bluff on the right hand 
side. 

Before noon the steamer hauled alongside a stationary hulk, which 
once " walked the waters" by the aid of machinery, but which was 
now used as a floatinof hotel, depot and storehouse — 315 feet long, and 
fully thirty feet on the upper deck above the level of the river. Here 
were my quarters till the boat for Natchez should arrive. The proprie- 
tor was somewhat excited on my arrival, because one of his servants 

was away. '' Where have you been, you ?" "Away to buy do 

newspaper, Massa." "For who, you ?" " Me buy 'em for no 

one, Massa ; me sell 'um agin, Massa." " See, now, you , if ever 

you goes aboard to meddle with newspapers, I'm but I'll kill you, 

mind that!" Baton Rouge is the capital of the State of Louisiana, and 
the State House is a quaint and very new example of bad taste. The 
Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in a much better style. It was my 
intention to visit the State Prison and Penitentiar}', but the day was 
too hot, and the distance too great, and so I dined at the oddest little 
Creole restaurant, with the funniest old hostess, and the strangest com- 
pany in the world. On returning to the boat hotel, Mr. Conrad, one 
of the citizens of the place, and Mr. W. Avery, a judge of the court, 
were good enough to call to invite me to visit them, but I was obliged 
to decline. The old gentlemen were both members of the home guard, 
and drilled assiduously every evening. Of th© 1,300 voters at Baton 
Rouge, more than V50 are already off to the wars, and another company 



112 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

is beino- formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has three sons in the 

o 

field already. The waiter who served out drinks in the bar wore a 
uniform, and his musket lay in the corner among the brandy bottles. 
At night a patriotic meeting of citizen soldiery took place in the bow, 
in which song and whiskey had much to do, so that sleep was difficult ; 
but at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning the Mary T. came along- 
side, and soon afterward bore me on to Natchez, through scenery which 
became wilder and less cultivated as she got upwards. Of the 1,500 
steamers on the river not a tithe are now in employment, and the 
owners are in a bad way. It was late at night when the steamer 
arrived at Natchez, and next morning early I took shelter in another 
engineless steamer, which was thought to be a hotel by its owners. Old 
negress on board, however, said, "■ There was nothing for breakfast ; go 
to Curry's on shore." Walk up hill to Curry's — a bar-room, a waiter 
and flies. " Can I have any breakfast ?" " No, sir-ree ; it's over half an 
hour ago." " Nothing to eat at all ?" " No, sir." " Can I get some 
anywhere else ?" " I guess not." It had been my belief that a man 
with money in his pocket could not starve in any country soi-disant 
civilized. Exceptions prove rules, but they are disagreeable things. 
I chewed the cud of fsmcj faute de mieux, and became the centre of 
attraction to citizens, from whose conversation I learned that this was 
" Jeff. Davis' fast day." Observed one, " It quite puts me in mind of 
Sunday ; all the stores closed." Said another, " We'll soon have Sun- 
day every day, then, for I 'spect it won't be worth while for most shops 
to keep open any longer." Natchez, a place of much trade and cotton 
export in the season, is now as dull — let us say as Harwich without a 
retratta. But it is ultra-Secessionist, nil obstante. My hunger was as- 
suaged by a friend who drove me up to his comfortable mansion through 
a country not unlike the wooded parts of Sussex, abounding in fine 
trees, and in the only lawns and park-like fields I have yet seen in 
America. In the evening, after dinner, my host drove me over to visit 
a small encampment under a wealthy planter, who has raised, equipped 
and armed his company at his own expense. 

We were obliged to get out at a narrow lane and walk toward the 
encampment on foot ; a sentry stopped us, and we observed that there 
was a semblance of military method in the camp. The captain was 
walking up and down in the verandah of the poor, deserted hut, for 
which he had abandoned his splendid home. A book of tactics (Har- 
dee's) — which is, in part, a translation of the French manual — lay on 
the table. Our friend was full of fight, and said he would give all he 
had in the world to the cause. But the day before, and a party of 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIEE. 113 

horse, composed of sixty gentlemen in the district, worth from £20,000 
to £50,000 each, had started for the war in Virginia. Every thing to 
be seen or heard testifies to the great zeal and resolution with which 
the South have entered upon the quarrel. But they hold the power 
of the United States, and the loyalty of the North to the Union at far 
too cheap a rate. Next day was passed in a delightful drive through 
cotton fields, Indian corn, and undulating woodlands, amid which were 
some charming residences. I crossed the river at Natchez, and saw 
one fine plantation, in which the corn, however, was by no means so 
fine as I have often seen. The cotton looks well, and some had already 
burst into flower — bloom, as it is called — which had turned to a fla- 
grant pink, and seemed saucily conscious that its boll would play an 
important part in the world. In this part of Mississippi the secessionist 
feeling was not so overpowering at first as it has been since the majority 
declared itself, but the expression of feeling is now all one way. The 
rage of Southern sentiment is to me inexplicable, making every allow- 
ance for Southern exaggeration. It is sudden, hot, and apparently as 
causeless as summer lightning. From every place I touched at along 
the Mississppi, a large portion of the population has gone forth to 
fight, or is preparing to do so. The whispers which rise through the 
storm are few and feeble. Some there are who sigh for the peace and 
happiness they have seen in England. But they cannot seek those 
things ; they must look after their property. Each man maddens his 
neighbor by desperate resolves, and threats and vows. Their faith 
is in Jeff'erson Davis' strength, and in the necessities and weakness of 
France and England. The inhabitants of the tracts which lie on the 
banks of the M ississippi, and on the inland regions hereabout, ought to 
be, in the natural order of things, a people almost nomadic, living by 
the chase, and by a sparse agriculture, in the freedom which tempted 
their ancestors to leave Europe. But the Old World has been work- 
ing for them. All its trials have been theirs ; the fruits of its experi- 
ence, its labors, its research, its discoveries, are theirs. Steam has en- 
abled them to turn their rivers into highways, to open primeval forests 
to the light of day and to man. All these, however, would have 
availed them little had not the demands of manufacture abroad, and 
the increasing luxury and population of the North and West at home, 
enabled them to find in these swamps and uplands sources of wealth 
richer and more certain than all the gold mines of the world. But 
there must be gnomes to work those mines. Slavery was an institu- 
tion ready to their hands. In its development there lay every material 
means for securing the prosperity which Manchester opened to them, 



114 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

and in supplying their own countrymen with sugar. The small, strug- 
gling, deeply-mortgaged proprietors of swamp and forest set their 
negroes to work to raise levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. 
As the negro became valuable by his produce, the Irish emigrant took 
his place in the severer labors of the plantation, and ditched and dug, 
and cut into the waste land. Cotton at ten cents a pound gave a nug- 
get in every boll. Land could be had for a few dollars an acre. Ne- 
groes were cheap in proportion. Men who made a few thousand 
dollars invested them in more negroes, and more land, and borrowed 
as much again for the same purpose. They waxed fat and rich — there 
seemed no bounds to their fortune. But threatening voices came from 
the North — the echoes of the sentiments of the civilized world repent- 
ing of its evil pierced their ears, and they found their feet were of clay, 
and that they were nodding to their fall in the midst of their power. 
Ruin inevitable awaited them if they did not shut out these sounds and 
stop the fatal utterances. The issue is to them one of life and death. 
Whoever raises it hereafter, if it be not decided now, must expect to 
meet the deadly animosity which is displayed toward the North. The 
success of the South — if it can succeed — must lead to complications 
and results in other parts of the world, for which neither it nor Europe 
is now prepared. Of one thing there can be no doubt — a slave state 
cannot long exist without a slave trade. The poor whites who have won 
the fight will demand their share of the spoils. The land is abundant, 
and all that is wanted to give them fortunes is a supply of slaves. 
They will have that in spite of their masters, unless a stronger power 
prevents the accomplishment of their wishes. 



Cairo, III., June 20, 1861. 
My last letter was dated from Natchez, but it will probably accompa- 
ny this communication, as there are no mails now between the North 
and the South, or vice versa. Tolerably confident in my calculations 
that nothing of much importance could take place in the field till some 
time after I had reached my post, it appeared to me desirable to see as 
much of the South as I could, and to form an estimate of the strength 
of the Confederation, although it could not be done at this time of the 
year without considerable inconvenience, arising from the heat, which 
renders it almost impossible to write in the day, and from the mos- 
quitos, which come out when the sun goes down and raise a blister at 
every stroke of the pen. On several days lately the thermometer has 
risen to 98 degrees, on one day to 105 degrees, in the shade. 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 115 

On Friday evening, June 14, I started from Xatchez for Yicksburgli, 
on board the steamer General Quitman, up the Mississippi. These long 
yellow rivers are very fine for patriots to talk about, for poets to write 
about, for buftalo fish to live in, and for steamers to navigate when 
there are no snags, but I confess the father of waters is extremely tire- 
some. Even the good cheer and comfort of the General Quitman could 
not reconcile me to the eternal beating of steam drums, blowing of 
whistles, bumping at landings, and the general oppression of levees, 
clearings and plantations, which marked the course of the river, and I 
was not sorry next morning when Vicksburgh came in sight, on the left 
bank of the giant stream — a city on a hill, not very large, be-steepled, 
be-cupolaed, large-hoteled. Here lives a man who has been the pioneer 
of hotels in the West, and who has now established himself in a big 
caravansery, which he rules in a curious fashion. M'Makin has, he tells 
us, been rendered famous by Sir Charles Lyell. The large dining-room — 
a stall a manger, as a friend of mine called it — is filled with small tables, 
covered with party-colored cloths. At the end is a long deal table, 
heavy with dishes of meat and vegetables, presided over by negresses 
and gentlemen of uncertain hue. In the centre of the room stood my 
host, shouting out at the top of his voice the names of the joints, 
and recommending his guests to particular dishes, very much as the 
chronicler tells us was the wont of the taverners in old London. Many 
little negroes ran about in attendance, driven hither and thither by the 
commands of their white Soulouque — white-teethed, pensive-eyed, but 
sad as memory. " Are you happy here ?" asked I of one of them who 
stood by my chair. He looked uneasy and frightened. "Why don't you 
answer ?" " I'se afeared to tell dat to massa." " Why, your master is 
kind to you?" "Berry good man, sir, when he not angry wid me!" 
And the little fellow's eyes filled with tears at some recollection which 
pained him. I asked no more. Vicksburgh is secessionist. There were 
hundreds of soldiers in the streets, many in the hotel, and my host said 
some hundreds of Irish had gone off" to the wars, to fight for the good 
cause. If Mr. O'Connell were alive, he would surely be pained to see 
the course taken by so many of his countrymen on this question. After 
dinner I was invited to attend a meeting of some of the citizens, at the 
railway station, where the time passed very agreeably till four o'clock, 
when the train started for Jackson, the capital of IMississiopi, and after 
a passage of two hours, through a poor, clay country, seared with water- 
courses and gullies, with scanty crops of Indian corn and very back- 
ward cotton, we were deposited in that city. It must be called a city. 
It is the state capital, but otherwise there is no reason why, in strict 



116 PICTURES OF SOUTHEKN LIFE. 

nomenclature, it should be designated by any sucli title. It is in the 
usual style of the " cities" which spring up in the course of a few years 
amid the stumps of half-cleared fields in the wilderness — wooden houses, 
stores kept by Germans, French, Irish, Italians ; a large hotel swarm- 
ing Avith people, with a noisy billiard-room and a noisier bar, the arena 
and the cause of " difficulties ;" wooden houses, with portentous and 
pretentious white porticoes, and pillars of all the Grecian orders ; a cu- 
pola or two, and two or three steeples, too large for the feeble bodies 
beneath — hydrocephalic architecture ; a state-house, looking well in the 
distance, ragged, dirty, and mean within; groups of idlers in front of the 
"Exchange," where the business transacted consists in a barter between 
money, or credit, and " drinks" of various stimulants ; a secluded tele- 
graph-office round a corner; a forward newspaper-office in the street, and 
a population of negroes, shuffling through the thick dust which forms 
the streets. I called on Mr. Pettus, the governor of the state of Missis- 
sippi, according to invitation, and found him in the state-house, in a 
very poor room, with broken windows and ragged carpets, and dilapi- 
dated furniture. He is a grim, silent man, tobacco-ruminant, abrupt- 
speeched, firmly believing that the state of society in which he exists, 
wherein there are monthly foul murders perpetrated at the very seat of 
government, is the most free and civilized in the world. He is easy of 
access to all, and men sauntered in and out of his office just as they 
would walk into a public-house. Once on a time, indeed, the governor 
was a deer-hunter, in the forest, and lived far away from the haunts of 
men, and he is proud of the fact. He is a strenuous seceder, and has 
done high-handed things in his way — simple apparently, honest prob- 
ably, fierce certainly — and he lives, while he is governor, on his salary 
of four thousand dollars a year, in the house provided for him by the 
state. There was not much to say on either side. I can answer for 
one. Next day being Sunday, I remained at rest in the house of a 
friend listening to local stories — not couleur de rose, but of a deeper tint 
— blood-red ; — how such a man shot another, and was afterward stabbed 
by a third; how this fellow and his friends hunted down, in broad 
day, and murdered one obnoxious to them — tale after tale, such as I 
have heard through the South and seen daily narratives of in the papers. 
Aceldama ! No security for life ! Property is quite safe. Its propri- 
etor is in imminent danger, were it only from stray bullets, when he 
turns a corner. The "bar," the "drink," the savage practice of walking 
about with pistol and poniard — ungovernable passions, ungoverned be- 
cause there is no law to punish the deeds to which they lead — these are 
the causes of acts which would not be tolerated in the worst davs of 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 117 

Corsican vendette, and which must be put down, or the conntrics in 
which they are unpunished will become as barbarous as jungles of wild 
beasts. In the evening I started, by railroad, for the city of Memphis, 
in Mississippi. There was a sleeping-car on the train, but the flying- 
bug and the creature less volatile, more pungent and persistent, which 
bears its name, murdered sleep ; and when Monday morning came, I 
was glad to arise and get into one of the carriages, although it w^as full 
of noisy soldiers, bound to the camp at Corinth, in the state of Missis- 
sippi, who had been drinking whiskey all night, and were now scream- 
ing for water and howling like demons. At Holly Springs, where a 
rude breakfast awaited us, the warriors got out on the top of the car- 
riages and performed a war-dance to the music of their band, which was 
highly creditable to the carriage-maker's workmanship. Along the road, 
at all the settlements and clearings, the white people cheered, and the 
women waved white things, and secession flags floated. There is no 
doubt of the state of feeling in this part of the country; and yet it does 
not look much worth fighting for — an arid soil, dry water-courses, clay 
ravines, light crops. Perhaps it will be better a month hence, and ne- 
groes may make it pay. There were many in the fields, and it struck 
me they looked better than those who work in gangs on the larger and 
richer plantations. Among our passengers were gentlemen from Texas, 
going to Richmond to off'er service to Mr. Davis. They declared, the 
feeling in their state w^as almost wdthout exception in favor of secession. 
It is astonishing how positive all these people are that England is in 
absolute dependence on cotton for her national existence. They are at 
once savage and childish. If England does not recognize the Southern 
Confederacy pretty quick, they will pass a resolution not to let her have 
any cotton, except, <fec. Suppose England does ever recognize a Con- 
federation based on the principles of the South, what guarantee is there 
that in her absolute dependence, if it exists, similar coercive steps may 
not be taken against her ? " Oh ! we shall be friends, you know;" and 
so on. 

On the train before us there had just passed on a company armed 
with large bowie-knives and rifled pistols, who called themselves the 
" Tooth-pick Company." They carried a coffin along wdth them, on 
which was a plate with "Abe Lincoln" inscribed on it, and they 
amused themselves with the childish conceit of telling the people as 
they went along that " they were bound" to bring his body back in it. 
At Grand Junction station the troops got out and were mustered pre- 
paratory to their transfer to a train for Richmond, in Virginia. The 
first company, about seventy strong, consisted exclusively of Irish, who 



118 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

were armed with rifles without bayonets. The second consisted of five- 
sixths Irish, armed mostly with muskets ; the third were of Americans, 
who were well uniformed, but had no arras with them. The fourth, 
clad in green, were nearly all Irish ; they wore all sorts of clothing, and 
had no pretensions to be regarded as disciplined soldiers. I am led to 
believe that the great number of Irish who have enlisted for service indi- 
cates a total suspension of all the works on which they are ordinarily 
engaged in the South. They were not very orderly. " Fix bayonets," 
elicited a wonderful amount of controversy in the ranks. " Whar are 
yer dhrivin to ?" " Sullivan, don't ye hear we're to fix beenits ?" "Ayse 
the sthrap of my baynit, sarjent, jewel !" " If ye prod me wid that agin, 
I'll let dayloite into ye," &c. Officer reading muster — " No. 23, James 
Phelan.'' No reply. Voice from the ranks — " Faith, Phelan's gone ; 
shure he wint at the last dipot." Old men and boys were mixed toge- 
ther, but the mass of the rank and file were strong, full-grown men. In 
one of the carriages were some women dressed as vivandieres, minus the 
coquette air and the trousers and boots of these ladies. They looked 
sad, sorry, dirty and foolish. There was great want of water along the 
line, and the dust and heat were very great and disagreeable. When 
they have to march many of the men will break down, owing to bad 
shoes and the weight of clothes and trash of various kinds they sling on 
their shoulders. They moved off amid much whooping, and our jour- 
ney w^as continued through a country in which the railroad engineer had 
made the opening for miles at a time. When a clearing was reached, 
however, there were signs that the soil was not without richness, and all 
the wheat ready cut and in sheaf. The passengers said it was fine and earl}' , 
and that it averaged from forty to sixty bushels to the acre (more than 
it looked). Very little ground here is under cotton. It was past one 
o'clock on Monday when the train reached Memphis, in Tennessee, 
which is situated on a high bluff" overhanging the Mississippi. Here is 
one of the strategic positions of the Confederates. It is now occupied 
by a force of the Tennesseeans, which is commanded by Major-General 
Pillow, whom I found quartered in Gayoso House, a large hotel, named 
after one of the old Spanish rulers here, and as he was stai-ting to inspect 
his batteries and the camp at Randolph, sixty odd miles higher up the 
river, I could not resist his pressing invitations, tired as I w^as, to ac- 
company him and his staff on board the Ingomar to see what they were 
really like. First we visited the bluff", on the edge of which is con- 
structed a breastwork of cotton bales, which no infantry could get at, 
and which would offer no resistance to vertical, and but little to hori- 
zontal fire. It is placed so close to the edge of the bluff at various 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. ligf 

places that shell and shot would knock away the bank from under it. 
The river runs below deep and strong, and across the roads or water- 
courses leading to it are feeble barricades of plank, which a howitzer 
could shiver to pieces in a few rounds. Higher up the bank, on a coni- 
nianding plateau, there is a breastwork and parapet, within which are 
six guns, and the general informed me he intended to mount thirteen 
guns at this part of the river, which would certainly prove very formi- 
dable to such steamers as they have on these waters, if any attempt were 
made to move down from Cairo. In the course of the day I was intro- 
duced to exactly seventeen colonels and one captain. My happiness was 
further increased by an introduction to a youth of some twenty-three 
years of age, with tender feet, if I may judge from prunella slippers, dressed 
in a green cutaway, jean pants, and a tremendous sombrero with a plume 
of ostrich feathers, and gold tassels looped at the side, who had the air 
and look of an apothecary's errand boy. This was " General" Maggies 
(let us say), of Arkansas. Freighted deeply with the brave, the Ingomar 
started for her voyage, and we came alongside the bank at Chickasaw 
Bluffs too late to visit the camp, as it was near midnight before we arrived, 
I forgot to say that a large number of steamers were lying at Memphis, 
which had been seized by General Pillow, and he has forbidden all traffic 
in boats to Cairo. Passengers must go round by rail to Columbus. 

June 18. — I have just returned from a visit to the works and bat- 
teries at the intrenched camp at Randolph's Point, sixty miles above 
Memphis, by which it is intended to destroy any flotilla coming down 
the river from Cairo, and to oppose any force coming by land to cover 
its flank and clear the left bank of the Mississippi. The Ingomar is 
lying under the rugged bank, or bluflf, about 150 feet high, which re- 
cedes in rugged tumuli and watercourses filled with brushwood from 
the margin of the river, some half-mile up and down the stream at this 
point, and Brigadier-General Pillow is still riding round his well-beloved 
earthworks and his quaint battalions, while I, anxious to make the most 
of my time now that I am fairly on the run for my base of operations, 
have come on board, and am now writinc: in the cabin, a lonor-roofcd 
room, with berths on each side, which runs from stem to stern of the 
American boats over the main deck. This saloon presents a curious 
scene. Over the bow, at one side, there is an office for the sale of 
tickets, now destitute of business, for the Ingomar belongs to the State 
of Tennessee ; at the other side is a bar where thirsty souls, who have 
hastened on board from the camp for a julep, a smash, or a cocktail, 
learn with disgust that the only article to be had is fine Mississippi 
water with ice in it. Lviutx on the deck in all attitudes are numbers 



120 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

of men asleep, whose plumed felt hats are the only indications that 
they are soldiers, except in the rare case of those who have rude uni- 
forms, and buttons, and stripes of colored cloth on the legs of their 
pantaloons. A sentry is sitting on a chair smoking a cigar. He is on 
guard over the after part of the deck, called the ladies' saloon, and 
sacred to the general and his staff and attendants. He is a tall, good- 
looking young fellow, in a gray flannel shirt, a black wide-awake, gray 
trousers, fastened on a belt on which is a brass buckle inscribed " U. S." 
His rifle is an Enfield, and the bayonet sheath is fastened to the belt 
by a thong of leather. That youthful patriot is intent on the ups and 
downs of fortune as exemplified in the pleasing game of euchre, or 
euker, which is exercising the faculties of several of his comrades, who, 
in their shirt sleeves, are employing the finest faculties of their nature 
in that national institution ; but he is not indiff"erent to his duties, and 
he forbids your correspondent's entrance until he has explained what 
he wants and who he is — and the second is more easy to do than the 
first. The sentry tells his captain, who is an euchreist, that " It's all 
right," and resumes his seat and his cigar, and the work goes bravely 
on. Indeed, it went on last night at the same table, which is within 
a few yards of the general's chair. And now that I have got a scrap of 
paper and a moment of quiet, let me say what I have to say of this 
position, and of what I saw — pleasant things they would be to the 
national general up at Cairo if he could hear them in time, unless he 
is as little prepared as his antagonist. On looking out of my cabin 
this morning, I saw the high and rugged bluff* of which I have spoken, 
on the left bank of the river. A few ridge-poled tents, pitched under 
the shade of some trees, on a small spur of the slope, was the only in- 
dication immediately visible of a martial character. But a close inspec- 
tion in front enabled me to detect two earthworks, mounted with guns, 
on the side of the bank, considerably higher than the river, and three 
heavy guns, possibly 42-pounders, lay in the dust close to the landing- 
place, with very rude carriages and bullock-poles to carry them to the 
batteries. A few men, ten or twelve in number, were digging at an 
encampment on the face of the slope. Others were lounging about the 
beach, and others, under the same infatuation as that which makes little 
boys disport in the Thames under the notion that they are washing 
themselves, were bathing in the Mississippi. A dusty track wound up 
to the brow of the bluff", and there disappeared. Some carts toiled up 
and down between the boat and the crest of the hill. We went on 
shore. There was no' ostentation 'of any kind about the reception of 
the general and his staff". A few horses were waiting impatiently in 



PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. I2l 

the sun, for flies will have their way, and heavy men are not so unbear- 
able as small mosquitos. With a cloud of colonels — one late United 
States man, who was readily distingiiisliable by his air from the volun- 
teers — the general proceeded to visit his batteries and his men. The 
first work inspected was a plain parapet of earth, placed some fifty feet 
above the river, and protected very slightly by two small flankino- 
parapets. Six guns, 32-pounders, and howitzers of an old pattern 
were mounted en barbette, without any traverses whatever. The car- 
riages rested on rough platforms, and the wheels ran on a traversino- 
semicircle of planks, as the iron rails were not yet ready. The gun- 
ners, a plain looking body of men, very like railway laborers and 
mechanics, without uniform, were engaged at drill. It was neither 
quick nor good work — about equal to the average of a squad after a 
couple of days' exercise ; but the men worked earnestly, and I have 
no doubt, if the nationalists give them time, they will prove artillery- 
men in the end. The general ordered practice to be made with round 
shot. After some delay, a kind of hybrid ship's carronade was loaded. 
The target was a tree, about 2,500 yards distant I was told. It ap- 
peared to me about 1,700 yards ofi". Every one was desirous of seeing 
the shot ; but we were at the wrong side for the wind, and I ventured 
to say so. However, the general thought and said otherwise. The 
word " Fire !" was given. x\las ! the friction-tube would not explode. 
It was one of a new sort, which the Tennesseeans are trying their 
'prentice hand at. A second answered better. The gun went off, but 
where the ball went to no one could say, as the smoke came into our 
eyes. The party moved to windward, and, after another fuse had 
missed, the gun was again discharged at some five degrees elevation, 
and the shot fell in good line, 200 yards short of the target, and did 
not ricochet. Gun No. 2 was then discharged, and off went the ball 
at no particular mark, down the river ; but if it did go off, so did the 
gun also, for it gave a frantic leap and jumped with the carriage off 
the platform ; nor was this wonderful, for it was an old-fashioned 
chambered carronade or howitzer, which had been loaded with a full 
charge, and solid shot enough to make it burst with indio-nation. 
Turning from this battery, we visited another nearer the water, with 
four guns (22-pounders), which were well placed to sweep the channel 
with greater chance of ricochet ; and higher up on the bank, toward 
a high peak commanding the Mississippi, here about 700 yards broad, 
and a small confluent which runs into it, was another battery of two 
guns, with a very great command, but only fit for shell, as the fire 
must be plunging. All these batteries were very ill constructed, and 
6 



122 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

in only one was the magazine under decent cover. In tlie first it was 
in rear of the batter}^ up the hill behind it. The parapets were of 
sand or soft earth, unprovided with merlons. The last had a few sand- 
bags between the guns. Riding up a steep road, we came to the camps 
of the men on the wooded and undulating plateau over the river, which 
is broken by watercourses into ravines covered with brushwood and 
forest trees. For five weeks the Tennessee troops under General Pil- 
low, who is at the head of the forces of the state, have been working 
at a series of curious intrenchments, which are supposed to represent 
an intrenched camp, and which look like an assemblage of mud beaver- 
dams. In a word, they are so complicated that they would prove ex- 
ceedingly troublesome to the troops engaged in their defence, and it 
would require very steady, experienced regulars to man them so as to 
give proper support to each other. The maze of breastworks, of flank- 
ing parapets, of parapets for field-pieces, is overdone. Several of them 
might prove useful to an attacking force. In some places the wood 
was cut down in front so as to form a formidable natural abattis ; but 
generally here, as in the batteries below, timber and brushwood were 
left uncut, up to easy musket-shot of the works, so as to screen an 
advance of riflemen, and to expose the defending force to considerable 
annoyance. In small camps of fifteen or twenty tents each the Ten- 
nessee troops were scattered, for health's sake, over the plateau, and 
on the level ground a few companies were engaged at drill. The men 
were dressed and looked like laboring people — small farmers, mechan- 
ics, with some small, undersized lads. The majority were in their shirt 
sleeves, and the awkwardness with which they handled their arms 
showed that, however good they might be as shots, they were by no 
means proficients in manual exercise. Indeed, they could not be, as 
they have been only five weeks in the service of the state, called out 
in anticipation of the secession vote, and since then they have been 
employed by General Pillow on his fortifications. They have com- 
plained more than once of their hard work, particularly when it was 
accompanied by hard fare, and one end of General Pillow's visit was 
to inform them that they would soon be relieved from their labors by- 
negroes and hired laborers. Their tents, small ridge-poles, are very- 
bad, but suited, perhaps, to the transport. Each contains six men. 
I could get no accurate account of their rations even from the quarter- 
master-general, and commissary -general there was none present ; but I 
was told that they had " a suflSciency — from f lb. to 1 J- lb. of meat, of 
bread, of sugar, cofl"ee and rice daily." Neither spirits nor tobacco is 
served out to these teri-ible chewers and not unaccomplished drinkers. 



PICTURES OF SOUTIIERX LIFE. 123 

Their pay " will be" the same as in the United States army or the 
Confederate States army — probably paid in the circulating medium 
of the latter. Seven or eight hundred men were formed into line for 
inspection. There w^ere few of the soldiers in any kind of uniform, 
and such uniforms as I saw were in very bad taste, and consisted of 
gaudy facings and stripes on very strange garments. They were armed 
with old-pattern percussion muskets, and their ammunition pouches 
were of diverse sorts. Shoes often bad, knapsacks scarce, head-pieces 
of every kind of shape — badges worked on the front or sides, tinsel in 
much request. Every man had a tin water-flask and a blanket. The 
general addressed the men, who were in line two deep (many of them 
unmistakable Irishmen), and said what generals usually say on such 
occasions — complements for the past, encouragement for the future. 
" When the hour of danger comes I will be with you." They did not 
seem to care much whether he was or not ; and, indeed, General Pil- 
low, in a round hat, dusty black frock-coat, and ordinary " unstriped" 
trousers, did not look like one who could give any great material ac- 
cession to the physical means of resistance, although he is a very ener- 
getic man. The major-general, in fact, is an attorney-at-law, or has 
been so, and was partner with Mr. Polk, who, probably from some of 
the reasons which determine the actions of partners to each other, sent 
Mr. Pillow to the Mexican war, where he nearly lost him, owing to 
severe wounds received in action. The general has made his intrench- 
ments as if he were framing an indictment. There is not a flaw for the 
enemy to get through, but he has bound up his own men in inexorable 
lines also. At one of the works a proof of the freedom of " citizen sol- 
diery" was afforded in a little hilarity on the part of one of the privates. 
The men had lined the parixpet, and had listened to the pleasant assu- 
rances of their commander that they would knock off" the shovel and 
hoe very soon, and be replaced by the eternal gentlemen of color. 
"Three cheers for General Pillow" were called for, and w^ere responded 
to by the whooping and screeching sounds that pass muster in this 
part of the world for cheers. As they ended a stentorian voice shouted 
out, " Who cares for General Pillow ?" and, as no one answered, it 
might be unfairly inferred that gallant officer was not the object of 
the favor or solicitude of his troops ; probably a temporary unpopu- 
larity connected with hard work found expression in the daring ques- 
tion. 

Randolph's Point is, no doubt, a very strong position. The edges 
of the plateau command the rear of the batteries below ; the ravines in 
the bluff" would give cover to a large force of riflemen, who could ren- 



124 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

del- the batteries untenable if taken from the river face, unless the camp 
in their rear on the top of the plateau Avas carried. Great loss of life, 
and probable failure, would result from any attack on the works from 
the river merely. But a flotilla might get past the guns without any 
serious loss, in the present state of their service and equipment ; and 
there is nothing I saw to prevent the landing of a force on the banks of 
the river, which, with a combined action on the part of an adequate 
force of gun-boats, could carry the position. As the river falls, the 
round-shot fire of the guns will be even less effective. The general is 
providing water for the camp, by means of lai'ge cisterns dug in the 
ground, which will be filled with water from the river by steam-power. 
The oflflcers of the araiy of Tennessee with whom I spoke were plain, 
farmerly planters, merchants, and lawyers, and the heads of the depart- 
ment were in no respect better than their inferiors by reason of any 
military acquirements, but were shrewd, energetic, common sense men. 
The officer in command of the works, however, understood his business, 
apparently, and was well supported by the artillery officer. There were, 
I was told, eight pieces of field-artillery disposable for the defence of 
the camp. 

Having returned to the steamer, the party proceeded up the river to 
another small camp in defence of a battery of four guns, or rather of a 
small parallelogram of soft sand covering a man a little higher than the 
knee, with four guns mounted in it on the river face. No communica- 
tion exists through the woods between the two camps, which must be 
six or seven miles apart. The force stationed here was composed prin- 
cipally of gentlemen. They were all in uniform. A detachment 
worked one of the guns, which the general wished to see fired with 
round shot. In five or six minutes after the order was given the gun 
was loaded, and the word given, " Fire." The gunner pulled the lan- 
yard hard, but the tube did not explode. Another was tried. A strong 
jerk pulled it out bent and incombustible. A third was inserted which 
came out broken. The fourth time was the charm, and the ball was 
projected about sixty yards to the right and one hundred yards short 
of the mark — a stump, some 1,200 yards distant, in the river. It must 
be remembered that there are no disparts, tangents, or elevating screws 
to the guns ; the officer was obliged to lay it by the eye with a plain 
chock of wood. The general explained that the friction tubes were the 
results of an experiment he was making to manufacture them, but I 
agreed with one of the officers, who muttered in my ear, " The old lin- 
stock and portfire are a darned deal better." There were no shells, 1 
could see, in the battery, and, on inquiry, I learned the fuses were made 



PICTUBES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 125 

of wood at Memphis, and were not considered by the officers at u!l 
trustworthy. Powder is so scarce that all salutes are interdicted, except 
to the governor of the state. In the two camps there were, I was 
informed, about 4,000 men. My eyesight, as far as I went, confirmed 
me of the existence of some 1,800, but I did not visit all the outlying 
tents. On landing, the band had played "God Save the Queen" and 
"Dixie's Land;" on returning, we had the "Marseillaise" and the 
national anthem of the Southern Confederation ; and by Avay of paren- 
thesis, it may be added, if you do not already know the fact, that 
" Dixie's Land" is a synonym for heaven. It appears that there was 
once a good planter, named "Dixie," who died at some period unknown, 
to the intense grief of his animated property. They found expression 
for their sorrow in song, and consoled themselves by clamoring in verse 
for their removal to the land to which Dixie had departed, and where, 
probably, the revered spirit would be greatly surprised to find himself 
in their company. Whether they were ill-treated after he died, and 
thus had reason to deplore his removal, or merely desired heaven in the 
abstract, nothing known enables me to assert. But Dixie's Land is 
now generally taken to mean the seceded states, where Mr. Dixie cer- 
tainly is not^ at this present writing. The song and air are the compo- 
sition of the organized African association, for the advancement of 
music and their own profit, which sings in New York, and it may be 
as well to add, that in all my tour in the South, I heard little melody 
from lips black or white, and only once heard negroes singing in the 
fields. 

Several sick men were put on board the steamboat, and were laid on 
mattresses on deck. I spoke to them, and found they were nearly all 
suffering from diarrhoea, and that they had had no medical attendance 
in camp. All the doctors want to fight, and the medical service of the 
Tennessee troops is very defective. As I was going down the river, I 
had some interesting conversation with General Clark, who commands 
about 5,000 troops of the Confederate States, at present quartered in 
two camps at Tennessee, on these points. He told me the commissariat 
and the medical service had given him the greatest annoyance, and con- 
fessed some desertions and courts-martial had occurred. Guard-mount- 
ing and its accessory duties w^ere performed in a most slovenly manner, 
and the German troops, from the Southern parts, were particularly dis- 
orderly. It was late in the afternoon when I reached Memphis. I may 
mention, obiter, that the captain of the steamer, talking of arms, gave 
me a notion of the sense of security he felt on board his vessel. From 
under his pillow he pulled one of his two Derringer pistols, and out of 



126 riCTURES OF SOUTHEKN LIFE. 

his clothes-press he produced a long heavy rifle, and a double gun, 
which was, he said, capital with ball and buckshot. 

June 19. — Up at three a. m., to get ready for the train at five, which 
will take me out of Dixie's Land to Cairo. If the owners of the old 
hostelries in the Egyptian city were at all like their Tennesseean fel- 
low-craftsmen in the upstart institution which takes its name, I wonder 
how Herodotus managed to pay his way. My sable attendant quite 
entered into our feelings, and was rewarded accordingly. At five a. m., 
covered with dust, contracted in a drive through streets which seem 
" paved with waves of mud," to use the phrase of a Hibernian gentle- 
man connected with the luggage department of the omnibus, " only 
the mud was all dust," to use my own, I started in the cars along with 
some Confederate officers and several bottles of whiskey, which at that 
early hour was considered by my unknown companions as a highly 
eflicient prophylactic against the morning dews, but it appeared that 
these dews are of such a deadly character, that, in order to guard 
ao-ainst their aff"ects, one must become dead drunk. The same remedv, 
I am assured, is sovereiofn ao-ainst rattlesnake bites. I can assure the 
friends of those gentlemen that they were amply fortified against any 
amount of dew or rattlesnake poison before they got to the end of 
their whiskey, so great was the supply. By the Memphis papers, it 
seems as if that institution of blood prevailed there as in New Orleans, 
for I read in my papers, as I went along, of two murders and one 
shooting as the incidents of the previous day, contributed by the 
"local." 

To contrast with this low state of social existence there must be a 
high condition of moral feeling, for the journal I was reading con- 
tained a very elaborate article to show the wickedness of any one pay- 
ing his debts, and of any state acknowledging its liabilities, which 
would constitute an individual vade mecum for Basinghall street. At 
Humboldt there was what is called a change of cars — a process that all 
the philosophy of the Baron could not have enabled him to endure 
without some loss of temper, for there was a whole Kosmos of south- 
ern patriotism assembled at the station, burning with the fires of liber- 
ty, and bent on going to the camp at Union City, forty-six miles away, 
where the Confederate forces of Tennessee, aided by Mississippi regi- 
ments, are out under the greenwood tree. Their force was irresistible, 
particularly as there were numbers of relentless citizenesses — what the 
American papers call " quite a crowd" — as the advanced guard of the 
invading army. While the original occupants were being compressed 
or expelled by crinoline — that all absorbing, defensive and aggressive 



PICTXJEES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 127 

ai't'''le of feminine war reigns here in wide-spread, iron-bound circles — ■ 
I took refuge on the platform, where I made, in an involuntary way, a 
good many acquaintances in this sort : "Sir, my name is Jones — Judge 
Jones, of Pumpkin County. I am happy to know you, sir." We 
shake hands affectionately. " Colonel (Jones' loquitur), allow me to 
introduce you to my friend, Mr. Scribble ! Colonel Maggs, Mr. Scrib- 
ble" The colonel shakes hands and immediately darts off to a circle 
of his friends, whom he introduces, and they each introduce some one 
else to me, and, finally, I am introduced to the engine-driver, Avho is 
really an acquaintance of value, for he is good enough to give me a 
seat on his engine, and the bell tolls, the steam trumpet bellows, and 
we move from the station an hour behind time, and with twice the 
number of passengers the cars were meant to contain. Our engineer 
did his best to overcome his difficulties, and we rushed rapidly, if not 
steadily, through a wilderness of forest ana tangled brakes, through 
which the rail, without the smallest justification, performed curves and 
twists, indicative of a desire on the part of the engineer to consume 
the greatest amount of rail on the shortest extent of line. My com- 
panion was a very intelligent Southern gentleman, formerly editor of a 
newspaper. , We talked of the crime of the country, of the brutal 
shootings and stabbings which disgraced it. He admitted their exist- 
ence with regret, but he could advise and suggest no remedy. "The 
rowdies have rushed in upon us, so that we can't master them." "Is the 
law powerless ?" "Well, sir, you see these men got hold of those who 
should administer the law, or they are too powerful or too reckless to 
be kept down." " That is a reign of terror — of mob ruffianism ?" " It 
don't hurt respectable people much ; but I agree with you it must be 
put down." "When — how?" "Well, sir, when things are settled, we'll 
just take the law into our hands. Kot a man shall have a vote unless 
he's American-born, and, by degrees, we'll get rid of these men who 
disgrace us." " Are not many of your regiments composed of Germans 
and Irish — of foreigners, in fact?" "Yes, sir." I did not suggest to 
him the thought which rose in my mind, that these gentlemen, if suc- 
cessful, would be very little inclined to abandon their rights while they 
had arms in their hands ; but it occurred to me as well that this would 
be rather a poor reward for the men who were engaged in establishing 
the Southern Confederacy. The attempt may fail, but assuredly I have 
heard it expressed too often to doubt that there is a determination 
on the part of the leaders in the movement to take away the suffrage 
from the men whom they do not scruple to employ in fighting their 
battles. If they cut the throats of the enemy they will stifle their own 



128 PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 

sweet voices at the same time, or soon afterward — a capital recom- 
pense to their emigrant soldiers ! 

The portion of Tennessee traversed by the railroad is not very attrac- 
tive, for it is nearly uncleared. In the sparse clearings were fields of 
Indian corn, growing amid blackened stumps of trees and rude log 
shanties, and the white population which looked out upon us was 
poorly housed at least, if not badly clad. At last we reached Corinth. 
It would have been scarcely recognizable by Mummius — even if he had 
ruined his old handiwork over again. This proudly-named spot con- 
sisted, apparently, of a grog-shop in wood, and three shanties of a simi- 
lar material, with out-offices to match, and the Acro-Corinth was a 
grocery store, of which the proprietors had no doubt gone to the wars, 
as it was shut up, and their names were suspiciously Milesian. But, 
if Corinth was not imposing, Troy, which we reached after a long run 
through a forest of virgin timber, was still simpler in architecture and 
general design. It was too new for " Troja fuit,'''* and the general 
"fixins" would scarcely authorize one to say ^'- Troja fueritr 

The Dardanian Towers were represented by a timber house, and 
Helen the Second — whom we may take on this occasion to have been 
simulated by an old lady smoking a pipe, whom I saw in the verandah 
— could have set them on fire much more readily than did her inter- 
esting prototype ignite the city of Priam. The rest of the place, and 
of the inhabitants, as I saw it and them, might be considered as an 
agglomerate of three or four sheds, a few log huts, a saw-mill, and some 
twenty negroes sitting on a log and looking at the train. From Troy 
the road led to a cypress swamp, over which the engines bustled, rattled, 
tumbled, and hopped at a perilous rate along a high trestlework, and 
at last we came to '' Union City," which seemed to be formed by great 
aggregate meetings of discontented shavings which had been whirled 
into heaps out of the forest hard by. But here was the camp of the 
Confederates, which so many of our fellow passengers were coming out 
into the wilderness to see. Their white tents and plank huts gleamed 
out through the green of oak and elm, and hundreds of men came out 
to the platform to greet their friends, and to inquire for baskets, boxes, 
and hampers, which put me in mind of the quartermaster's store at 
Balaklava. We have all heard of the unhappy medical officer who ex- 
hausted his resources to get up a large chest from that store to the 
camp, and who on opening it, in the hope of finding inside the articles 
he was most in need of, discovered that it contained an elegant assort- 
ment of wooden legs ; but he could not have been so much disgusted 
as a youthful warrior here who was handed a wicker-covered jar from 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 129 

the lugfgage van, which he " tapped" on the spot, expecting to find it 
full of Bourbon whiskey, or something equally good. He raised the 
ponderous vessel aloft and took a long pull, to the envy of his com- 
rades, and then spirting out the fluid with a hideous face exclaimed, 
" d , etc. Why, if the old woman has not sent me syrup !'' Evi- 
dently no joke, for tho crowd around him never laughed, and quietly 
dispersed. It Avas fully two hours before the train got away from the 
camp, leaving a vast quantity of good things and many ladies, who had 
come on in the excursion train, behind them. There were about 6,000 
men there, it is said, rude, big, rough fellows, with sprinklings of odd 
companies, composed of gentlemen of fortune exclusively. The sol- 
diers, who are only entitled to the name in virtue of their carrying 
arms, their duty, and possibly their fighting qualities, lay under the 
trees playing cards, cooking, smoking, or reading the papers ; but the 
camp was guarded by sentries, some of whom carried their firelocks 
under their arms like umbrellas, others by the muzzle, with»the butt 
over the shoulder ; one, for ease, had stuck his, with the bayonet in the 
ground, upright before him ; others laid their arms against the trees, 
and preferred a sitting to an upright posture. In front of one camp 
there were two brass field-pieces, seemingly in good order. Many of 
the men had sporting rifles or plain muskets. There were several boys 
of fifteen and sixteen years of age among the men, who could scarcely 
carry their arms for a long day's march ; but the Tennessee and Mis- 
sissippi infantry were generally the materials of good soldiers. The 
camps were not regularly pitched, with one exception; the tents were 
too close together ; the water is bad, and the result was that a good 
deal of measles, fever, diarrhoea, and dysentery prevailed. One man 
who came on the train was a specimen of many of the classes which fill 
the ranks — a tall, very muscular, handsome man, with a hunter's eye, 
about thirty-five years of age, brawny-shouldered, brown-faced, black- 
bearded, hairy-handed ; he bad once owned one hundred and ten negroes 
— equal, say, to £20,000 — but he had been a patriot, a lover of freedom, 
a filibuster. First he had gone off" with Lopez to Cuba, where he was 
taken, put in prison, and included among the number who received 
grace ; next he had gone off with Walker to Nicaragua, but in his last 
expedition he fell into the hands of the enemy, and was only restored 
to liberty by the British officer who was afterward assaulted in New 
Orleans for the part he took in the affair. These little adventures had 
reduced his stock to five negroes, and to defend them he took up arms, 
and he looked like one who could use them. When he came from 
Nicaragua he weighed only one hundred and ten pounds, now he was 
6* 



130 PICTURES OP SOUTHERN LIFE. 

over two hundred pounds — a splendid bote fauve ; and, without wish- 
ing him harm, may I be permitted to congratulate American society on 
its chance of p-ettino; rid of a considerable number of those of whom he 
is a representative man. We learned incidentally that the district 
wherein these troops are quartered was distinguished by its attachment 
to the Union. By its last vote Tennessee proved that there are at 
least forty thousand voters in the state who are attached to the United 
States government. At Columbus the passengers were transferred to a 
steamer, which in an hour and a half made its way against the stream 
of the Mississippi to Cairo. There, in the clear light of a summer's 
eve, were floating the stars and stripes — the first time I had seen the 
flag, with the exception of a glimpse of it at Fort Pickens, for two 
months. Cairo is in Illinois, on the spur of land which is formed 
by the junction of the Ohio River with the Mississippi, and its name is 
probably well known to certain speculators in England, who believed in 
the fortuTies of a place so appropriately named and situated. Here is 
the camp of Illinois troops under General Prentiss, which watches the 
shores of the Missouri on the one hand, and of Kentucky on the other. 
Of them, and of what may be interesting to readers in England, I shall 
speak in my next letter. I find there is a general expression of satis- 
faction at the sentiments expressed by Lord John Russell in the speech 
which has just been made known here, and that the animosity excited 
by what a portion of the American press called the hostility of the 
foreign minister to the United States, has been considerably abated, 
although much has been done to fan the anger of the people into a 
flame, because England has acknowledged the Confederate States have 
limited belligerent rights. 



Cairo, Illinois. 
In my last letter I gave an account of what I saw on my way to the 
city of Memphis, and of my visit to the Secessionists' camp, and brought 
up the narrative of the journey to my arrival at this place, which is the 
head-quarters of the brigade of Illinois troops employed in behalf of 
the Union to keep a watch and ward over the important point which 
commands the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Major- 
General Pillow, of Tennessee, blockades the current of the united rivers 
at Memphis ; Brigadier-General Prentiss blockades both streams before 
they join at Cairo higher up. The former is in the midst of friends ; 
the latter is surrounded by enemies — across the rivers, in his rear, be- 
low, behind, and above him — in his very camp there are Secessionist 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 131 

feelings, sentiments, and wishes, sometimes represented by actual force, 
There are in the larger states about this vast region conditions of 
opinion on the subject of Union or Secession which are like the electrical 
phenomena of a conductor, charged by induction. As the states ap- 
proach or recede from the great slave agriculturists they become Seces- 
sionist, or divided, and finally Unionist. Western Virginia is rather 
federalist than otherwise ; Southern Illinois is in .several counties all 
but secessionist ; East and West Tennessee differ in sentiment on the 
great question Missouri is also distracted by federalist and dis- 
unionist. 

It may be that this schism will not only break up the Union, but 
even split up the. states, for the sovereignity of which one part of the 
republic is arrayed in arms against the other. The secessionists, how- 
ever, stop short with their universal remedy at the borders of each 
state, and do not admit the right of separation to any portion of a 
state unless it be in their own favor. A Union man is very glad to 
observe discussion in a state when it is brought about by the friends 
of the government at Washington. A Northern man will endure any 
thing but the idea of the Union being broken up ; he becomes intem- 
perate and. angry if it be hinted at. But, in whatever way the end 
may be worked out, it is clear the means used in doing so is the old- 
fashioned machine in vogue in the old world in the hands of despots, 
kings, and rulers ; and that the majority in states which was the ruling 
power must be destroyed by the process. The argument of a self- 
governing people for the whole of the United States is now convenient 
enough ; but we heard very different language when England demand- 
ed redress for the imprisonment of her subjects at Charleston, and 
when a British subject was seized in Xew York because he had de- 
stroyed a vessel in the service of the enemy. In fact, the whole of 
the philosophical abstractions on which the founders of the republic 
based their constitution, have given way before the pressure of events, 
and every step that is taken by the federal government in vindication 
of its rights or prerogatives is embarrassed by difficulties which in the 
end must be cut by the sword. The authorities can scarcely deal even 
with a rebel privateer ; and in the case of the schooner taken by the 
United States brig Perry in all but flagrant piracy, with proofs abund- 
ant of her guilt, there is no court to condemn her, unless one be 
specially devised, inasmuch as she ought by law to be condemned in 
the United States court in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, 
where the- United States processes at this moment are not of much 
etYect. It is obvious that such an emergency as the present cannot be 



132 PICTTTRES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

met by any constitutional devices. Republics in a crisis have always 
had recourse to dictators. If word-splitters, doctrine-mongers, and 
dodging politiciiins, at the forthcoming Congress at Washington, at- 
tempt to control the action of the executive by " constitutional" de- 
vices, motions, or resolutions, they will do more harm to the cause of 
the Union than all the militia captains of the enemy's host. 

A few hours took me out of the Southern camps to the Federalist 
position ; but secession sentiments travelled on board the steamer. An 
English steward, who left his country so long ago that he forgets all 
the feelings of his countrymen, expressed his opinion that the South 
would hold its own on the slavery basis, and professed astonishment at 
the notion that slavery was not in itself a good thin^ which he found 
prevalent in Great Britain. The passengers were rather Secessionist 
than Unionist, and I must say, from what I have seen, there is far more 
leniency and forbearance shown by the United States authorities to 
the rebels than the latter exhibit toward those who are in favor of 
federal principles, which are generally described down South as " abo- 
litionist." On landing at the levee of Cairo, the passengers went 
where they listed, and a very strong secessionist from New Orleans, 
who had travelled with me in the train going north on " business" — I 
suspect tarn Marte quam Mercurio — was let go his way by General 
Prentiss after a brief detention. Regarded from the river, Cairo con- 
sists of a bank of mud running out in the junction of the Mississippi 
and Ohio, in the shape of a horizontal <^. The tops of certain unim- 
pressive wooden stores appear above the bank, and one tall hotel rises 
aloft near the sharp end, before which the United States flag floats 
with all its thirty-four stars. At the angle there is an earthwork, 
which is not yet complete, but which will soon be finished, in very 
good order. It is a redan, or rather a fleche, following the line of the 
banks, with a good profile and command — a regular ditch, scarp and 
counterscarp, and it owes its excellence probably to the skill of a 
Colonel Wagner, a Hungarian artillery officer, who is in charge of it. 
The hotel was crowded with men in uniform, and it was suggested by 
the landlord that one bed was large enough for two stout gentlemen — 
my friend and myself — the thermometer being at 100° or so in the 
shade ; but there was a difference of opinion on that point, and finally 
we were quartered in a secluded little chamber, two-bedded, one-win- 
dowed, with a fine view into the Isack-yard. The delta is strongly oc- 
cupied by Illinois volunteer forces, with two field batteries and several 
guns of position. On the opposite shore of the Mississippi, at a place 
called Bird's Point, in the State of Missouri, is a detached post, with 



PICTURES OF SOUTHER?? LIFE. 133 

field intrenchmcnts held by a regiment composed of Germans, Poles, 
and Hungarians, under Colonel Schuttner, about one thousand strong, 
and several pieces of light artillery. Posts are also established higher 
up on the banks of each river, but on the bank of the Ohio, opposite 
to Cairo, the soil is tabooed. There is the " sacred soil" of Kentucky, 
and Beriah Magoffin has warned the United States and Confederate 
States off his premises. It is my belief, however, that Columbus will 
not be long unoccupied. The Kentuckians opposite Cairo are very 
strong secessionists. 

At the rear of the hotel, in the hollow between the levees and the 
rivers, is " Camp Defiance," which must be the base of operations of 
any force proceeding down the Mississippi. On the morning of my 
arrival (June 20), I was introduced to General Prentiss, whom I found 
in a large room on the ground floor of the hotel, which is the head- 
quarters of the brigade. He is a man in the prime of life, about 
forty years of age, with a clear liquid blue eye, and very agreeable 
in manner ; smooth-faced, except as to the chin, which is adorned by 
the harhe tVAfrique or goatee, so much affected in America ; over the 
middle height, slight and active figure, and speaking with what is called 
a slight western accent. Although he was aware I had just come from 
Memphis, the general had the good taste not to ask any questions re- 
specting the position, which is more than I can say of all I met on 
either side. By his elbow was his acting aide-de-camp and military 
secretary, an Englishman named Binmore, who was formerly engaged 
as government stenographer at Washington, and has now sharpened 
his pencil into a sword. A number of officers were in the room, one 
of whom was a Hungarian, Milotsky ; another a German, a third a 
Scotchman, a fourth an Englishman. In conversing on various mat- 
ters, General Prentiss showed me, with a smile, a copy of a newspaper, 
published in Kentucky, which contained an " article" on himself that 
cannot readily meet with a parallel even in the journalism of this part 
of the world. For the benefit of your readers I send it, that they 
may judge what sort of a people it must be which tolerates the use of 
such language : 

There is a man now vegetating at Cairo, by name Prentiss, who is in command 
of the forces at that point. His quahfications for the command of such a squad of 
villains and cut-throats are: He is a miserable hound, a dirty dog, a sociable 
fellow, a treacherous villain, a notorious thief, a lying blackguard, has served his 
regular five years in the penitentiary, and keeps his hide continually full of Cincin- 
nati whisky, which he buys by the barrel to save money. In him are embodied all 
the leprous rascalities, and in this hving sore the gallows has been cheated of its 
own. This Prentiss wants our scalp. We have no objection to his having it if he 



134 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

can get it ; and we will propose a plan by which he may become possessed of that 
valuable article. It is this : Let him select one hundred and fifty of his best fight- 
ing men, or two hundred and fifty of the lager-beer Dutchmen, and we will select 
one hundred ; then let both parties meet at a given point, where there wiU be no 
interruption of the scalping business, and then the longest pole will knock the 
"persimmon." If he does not accept this proposal he is a coward. We think the 
above proposition fair and equal. 

These gems are from a paper called The Crescent^ printed at Co- 
lumbus, Ky., and edited by '' Colonel" L. G. Faxon of the " Ten- 
nessee Tigers," a worthy and accomplished officer and gentleman, no 
doubt. 

In the afternoon, General Prentiss was good enough to drive me 
round the camp in company with Mr. Washburne, member of Congress 
from Illinois, and several officers and gentlemen. Among them was 
Mr. Oglesby, colonel of a regiment of Illinois volunteers, and, as it 
shows of what material the commanding officers of these regiments, on 
whose individual action so much depends, are made, I may be pardoned 
for stating that this excellent, kindly, and shrewd old man, who was 
responsible for the position and efficiency of 1,000 men, is one who 
raised himself from obscurity to a competence by the drudgery of a 
lawyer's office in spite of a defective education, and that he never hand- 
led a company in the field in his life. Apparently, he is selected to be 
a colonel because he can make good, homely, telling speeches to his 
men, and he may think he will be a good officer just as he may imagine 
he is an excellent artilleryman because the first time he ever laid and 
fired a gun the other day the ball hit the tree at which it was aimed. 
The bulk of the troops are encamped in wooden sheds, provided with 
berths like those in a ship, which are disposed longitudinally, so as to 
afibrd the maximum of sleeping room. These sheds run continuously 
along the inward side of the levees, the tops of which are broad enough 
to serve as carriage roads. They answer well enough for temporary 
purposes, but would not do for a lengthened residence. There can be 
no drainage, as the ground on which they stand is below the water 
level. The parade is spacious and level enough — the bottom of a swamp 
which the troops have cleared, cutting down trees and removing stumps 
with great diligence and labor. Our drive extended up the Mississippi 
shore, past two field guns in position and some infantry tents, up to the 
camp of a company of Chicago light artiller}^ and of Hungarian and 
German volunteers, under Major Milotsky. The guns fired a salute on 
the arrival of the genei-al, and the company were drawn up to receive 
him — an unequally-sized body of men, most of whom, however, were 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 135 

quite fit for any military duty. The captain, Mr. Smith, is, I should 
judge from his accent, a Scotchman, and he told me the men in his 
company represented a million and-a-half of dollars in property. The 
jruns of the company (brass six-pounders), the horses and equipments 
Avere clean and in good order ; the firing was well-timed. While seated 
in his tent several of the privates came forward outside and sang " The 
Star Spangled Banner," " God Save the Queen" (to their own words), 
and other airs very pleasingly ; but a severe reception awaited the 
guests on going outside, for the wliole of the company were drawn 
up in line, and they then and there set up a shouting for " Washburne," 
so that the honorable member was fain to comply and make a speech ; 
and then General Prentiss made a speech under similar compulsion ; 
and next Colonel Oglesby ; and then your own correspondent, who has 
had quite enough of speaking in America, in his first and last effort, 
was forced to say he could not make a speech ; and after other ora- 
tions, in Avhich the audience were always called " gentlemen !" we got 
off" (with " three cheers") to the Hungarians, who were waiting for their 
turn — a fine, soldierly-looking set of men, of whom our Kentucky editor 
writes as follows : 

TThen the bow-legged, wooden-shoed, sourkrout-stinking, bologne-sausage- 

eating, hen-roost-robbing Dutch sons of from Cairo had accompHshed the 

brilliant feat of taking down the Secession flag on the river bank, they were pointed 
to another flag of the same sort, which was flying gloriously and defiantly about 
two squares distant (and which their guns did not cover), and defied, yea, double- 
big, black-dog dared (as we used to say at school) to take that flag down. The 
cowardly pups, the sheep-dogs, the sneaking skunks dare not do so, because those 
twelve pieces of artillery were not bearing upon it. And these are the people who 
are sent by Lincoln to "crush out" the South! 

The oflicer in command put them through light infantry drill, ad- 
vance of line of skirmishers, charge, rally, retreat, etc., all well done, 
and they marched back singing to camp and gave three good cheers for 
the general. In our way back the party stopped at another camp 
which was enlivened by the presence of ladies, Avho had come some 
hundreds of miles to see husbands and brothers, and in the evening the 
usual parade took place near the hotel. Four regiments of about seven 
hundred each were on the ground, and never, perhaps, did any foi-ce 
only a few weeks in the field look more like soldiers, march more 
steadily in line, or present a better appearance in the ranks. When 
drawn up in Hue the diff'erence in uniform in various companies struck 
the eye as a disagreeable novelty — one with white cross-belts between 
two companies with black cross-belts, for example ; but the line of 



136 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

bayonets was unwavering and uniformly sloped — all the ordinary work 
of a very ordinary regimental parade was performed by each with pre- 
cision and rapidity, and the men were as fine fellows as could be seen 
in any infantry regiments of the line in any part . of the world. The 
officers, however, did not seem very quick — orders were carried at a 
trot — the combined movements were slow, and a little clubbing took 
place in forming into line from columns of companies marching in 
echelon. Just as it was dark there came into camp, with a good band 
at their head, a remarkably stoiit-looking set of fellows, armed with 
rifle and bayonet, very tall, in heavy marching order, and stepping out 
like men who knew their business. Alas ! that it should be so. But 
these are Colonel Schuttner's " Dutchmen," as they are called, who 
have been a little eccentric at Bird's Point, going on scouting parties, 
and making themselves generally active either without or with the 
colonel's sanction, and so they are marched to camp as a punishment 
for their want of discipline, and their place is taken by another battal- 
ion. I am informed the conduct of the troops on the whole has been 
very exemplary. 

June 21. — I visited the earthworks at the end of the levee. Colonel 
AVaagner was ill with the usual camp diarrhcea, but he would insist on 
getting up and showing me his performance. He has fought in many 
hard fields in Europe, served in the Hungarian war, and accompanied 
Kossuth to the United States. His right-hand man. Lieutenant O'Leary, 
was formerly a petty ofiicer in the British navy, served in the Furious 
in the Black Sea, and was in the Shannon Biigade, under the ever-to- 
be-deplored sailor who led them to the relief of Lucknow, and finally to 
the reduction of that ill-starred city. Mr. O'Leary told me he was not 
much credited here when he recounted the manner in which Sir William 
Peel taught his sailors to toss about 68-pounders as if they were field- 
pieces. The work I found to be rather " crowded" with guns, but it 
gives promise of such strength as to enable the occupants to command 
both rivers effectually. The armament is quite adequate to all purposes, 
and consists of one 8-inch howitzer, two 24-pounders, two 32-pounders, 
and some lighter guns, the v.hole being dominated by a 10-inch colum- 
biad in the centre, on a circular traversing slide, not yet mounted. The 
magazine is well made and lighted ; it is the safest and best I have seen 
in the States. The practice I saw with a field-piece from the work, at 
a small target 500 yards off, in order to try ricochet fire, was by no 
means bad, and would have speedily sunk a boat in the line of fire. 
Whenever a steamer is made out approaching Cairo a gun is fired from 
one or other of the ports. The steamer then gives the private signal 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 137 

agreed upon, and if she does not answer, is fired upon and brought to 
by round shot. 

In the evening, as I was walking up and down the levee after a day 
of exhausting heat, an extraordinary tumult attracted my attention, 
and on running to the hotel, whence the noise proceeded, I discovered 
a whole regiment drawn up two deep without arms, and shouting 
out in chorus, " Water ! water ! water !" The officers were powerless, 
but presently General Prentiss came round the corner, and mounting on 
a railing proceeded to address the soldiery in energetic terms, but in 
substance his remonstrance would have been considered^ in a French or 
English army, as much a breach of discipline as the act it had censured. 
These men had broken out of barracks after hours, forced their officers 
and the sentries, and came np shouting to the head-quarters of their 
general to complain of a deficiency of water. The general addressed 
them as " gentlemen." It was not his fault they wanted water. It was 
their officers who were to blame, not he. He would see they had water, 
and would punish the contractor, but they must not come disturbing 
him, by their outcries at night. Their conduct was demoralizing to 
themselves, and to their comrades. Having rated the " gentlemen" 
soundly, he ordered them back to their quarters. They gave three 
cheers for the general, and retired in regular line of march with their 
officers. The fact was, that the men on returning from a hot and thirsty 
drill, found the water-barrels, which ought to have been filled by the 
contractor, empty, and not for the first time, and so they took the 
quartermaster's business into their own hands. Their officers did not 
wish to be very strict, and why? The term of the men's voluntary ser- 
vice is nearly over, they have not yet been enrolled for the service of 
the state ; therefore, if they were aggrieved they might be disposed to 
disband, and not renew their engagements, and so the officers would 
be left without any regiment to offer to the state. But they went off 
in an orderly manner, and General Prentiss, though much annoyed by 
the occurrence, understands volunteers better than we do. There is no 
doubt but that the quartermasters' department is in a bad condition in 
both armies. Mr. Forstall has proposed to the Southern authorities to 
hang any contractor who may be detected cheating. There would prob- 
ably be few contractors left if the process were carried into effect at the 
North. The medical department is better in the Northern than in the 
Southern armies. But even here there is not an ambulance, a cacolet, or 
a mule litter. When General Scott made his first requisition for troops 
and money, or rather when he gave in his estimate of the probable re- 
quirements to carry on the war, I hear the ministers laughed at his 



138 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

demands. They would be very glad now to condone for the original 
figures. Little do they, North or South, know what war must cost in 
money, in life, in misery. Already they are suffering, but it is but a 
tithe of what is to come, for the life and misery have not been expended 
and felt. In the Memphis papers two days ago I saw a notification that 
drafts would be issued by the magistrates to families left in distress 
by the departure of their heads and supports to the seat of war. In the 
Cairo papers to-day I observe an appeal to the authorities to do some- 
thing to aid the citizens reduced to pauperism by the utter stagnation 

of trade. 

Saturday, June 22, 1861. 

The information which Brigadier-Greneral Prentiss received, of move- 
ments on the part of the Missouri secessionists, induced him, in pursu- 
ance, I presume, of instructions from the head-quarters of his district, 
or, possibly, on his own responsibility, to send out an expedition secretly 
this afternoon to break up their camp, and disperse or make them pris- 
oners. It is in that sort of guerrilla enterprises that much of the time 
and strength of the federalists will be consumed. A good map of the 
States may fail to show the little village of Commerce, on the Mississip- 
l>i, but it is about sixteen miles east of the town of Benton, and is about 
two hours' steaming from Cairo. Here the Confederates, or " rebels," as 
they are called in my present latitude, have collected in two or three 
small camps, in numbers to which report adds and deducts ciphers at 
pleasure. But General Prentiss does not think they can be over a few 
hundred men, judging from the force he sent against them. It is sup- 
posed these bands are the debris of Governor Jackson's followers, who 
have been encouraged by promises of support from Memphis, to assem- 
ble as rallying centres for the secessionists of Missouri, who would, no 
doubt, collect in considerable numbers if they were permitted, and 
would summon their defeated governor, now an exile in Arkansas, to 
their head. But the position they occupy is very important in a strat- 
egical sense, as it commands the Mississippi above Cairo, and if they 
succeeded in getting a few guns, they could stop the navigation of the 
river, and cause serious embarrassment to the right flank and rear of the 
federalists posted on the junction of that river with the Ohio, as well as 
neutralizing the work at Bird's Point. In despite of their great violence 
of speech, the secessionists, like other men in most parts of the world, 
abate their rage in the presence of armed force — inter arma silent; and 
the process which is going on in Missouri may be equally successfid if 
it can be applied elsewhere. Any way, the results must show the gov- 
ernment at Washington, that if they could have acted on the same prin- 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 139 

ciples elsewhere they would now be in a very different position. The 
outcry which would have been raised against them could not be louder 
or stronger than it is at present. Why, Cairo itself was a centre of disaffec- 
tion and secession till the Illinois volunteers occupied it militarily with 
artillery and a strong force of infantry! For days they were threatened 
with an attack, and were subjected to abuse and insults. All that has 
died away, and outwardly, at least, Cairo is Unionist, although South- 
ern Illinois is by no means of the same mind, and General Prentiss 
finds it necessary to station troops along the railroad, at the bridges, 
to prevent any playful pranks in sawing the timbers or setting them 
on lire. 

It was nearly dusk before the expedition started. It consisted of 
about seven hundi'ed men and one six-pounder field-piece, under the 
command of Colonel Morgan, an officer who saw service during the 
Mexican war, and who has the reputation — I should think well-deserved 
— of being a skilfnl, brave, and prudent officer. I saw the companies 
paraded, and I must say their appearance was most creditable to 
the officers and the men themselves. Making allowance for diversity 
of arms and uniform, company by company, they were well set up, 
stout, powerful, infantrj'^-looking, cheerful, and full of confidence, and 
among them were many old soldiers, particularly Germans and Hunga- 
rians. The field-pieces were very well horsed, probably provided with 
tumbril, spare wheel, and a full compliment of well-equipped gunners. 
As they marched on board the huge river steamer — a Pelion of light 
carpentry on an Ossa of engines and boilers — the men cheered in the 
old English style, and gave three thundering "hurrahs" as the steamer 
backed out and set her bow against the stream. But now comes what 
seemed to me a little of the recklessness and want of foresight, or, at 
least, of precaution, which has been evident in more than one of the 
federalist expeditions, with the usual consequences of disaster and loss. 
These men and horses and the gun were put on board this big tinder- 
box, all fire and touchwood. One small boat, capable of carrying a 
dozen men at most, hung at her stern. Imagine an explosion, and her 
engines are high-pressure ; a shot from a masked gun into her boiler, 
and her boilers are exposed; even heavy musketry fire opened suddenly 
from the wooden bank on the beehive-like- deck, where the solitar}^ gun 
could scarcely be worked, and the men could not be landed, and see 
what a catastrophe might ensue. To use a homely simile, there were 
" too many eggs in one basket." And there was no necessity for doing 
this, inasmuch as many steamers lay at the disposal of the authorities, 
and the steamer could easily have towed up flats or boats for the giin 



140 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

and men. A handful of horsemen would have been admirable to move 
in advance, feel the covers, and make prisoners for political or other 
purposes in case of flight ; but the Americans persist in ignoring the 
use of horsemen, or at least in depreciating it, though they will at last 
find that they may shed much blood, and lose much more, before they 
can gain a great victory without the aid of artillery and chai-ges after 
the retreating enemy. From the want of cavalry, I suppose it is, the 
unmilitary practice of " scouting," as it is called here, has arisen. It is 
all very well in the days of Indian wars for footmen to creep about in 
the bushes and shoot or be shot by sentries and pickets ; but no civi- 
lized war, if there be such a thing at all in civil conflicts, recognizes such 
means of annoyance as firing upon sentinels, unless in case of an actual 
advance or feigned attack on the line. No camp can be safe without 
cavalry videttes and pickets, for the enemy can pour in impetuously after 
the alarm has been given, as fast as the outlying footmen can run in. 
In feeling the way for a column, cavalry are invaluable, and there can be 
little chance of ambuscades or surprises where they are judiciously em- 
ployed ; but " scouting" on foot, or adventurous private expeditions on 
horseback, to have a look at the enemy, can do, and will do, nothing 
but harm. Every day the papers contain accounts of " scouts" being 
killed, and sentries being picked off". The latter is a very barbarous and 
savage practice ; and the Russian, in his most angry moments, abstained 
from it. If any officer wishes to obtain information as to his enemy, 
he has two ways of d oing it. He can employ spies, who carry their 
lives in their hands, or he can beat up their quarters by a proper recon- 
noissance on his own responsibility, in which, however, it would be ad- 
visable not to trust his force to a railway train. In talking to General 
Prentiss, this evening, I was informed that the enemies' spies visit Cairo 
every day. Strict precautions are used to prevent access to the camps 
— a close chain of sentries is posted all around, and in the day a pass is 
necessary for admittance, unless one belongs to the force, and at night 
no one is admitted without the countersign. An Irish gentleman, who 
had been evincing his satisfaction at the receipt of his wages more H'lber- 
nico^ just now attempted to get past us — "Who goes there?" "A 
friend — shiire you know I'm a friend!" "Advance three paces and 
give the countersign." The gentleman approached, but was brought 
up by the bayonet. " Send for the captain, and he'll give you the word 
bedad." The intercession was unnecessary, for two policemen came up 
in hot pursuit, and the general, who was sitting by, ordered the guard 
to deliver their prisoner to the civil power. For some extraordinary 
reason this act moved the prisoner to the greatest gratitude, and, taking 



PICTUEES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 141 

off his cap, lie exclaimed, " Tliank you, general ; long life to you. In- 
deed, general, I'm greatly obliged to you on this account." Another 
sentry who challenged an officer in the usual way, was asked by him, 
"Do you know the countersign yourself?" "Indeed I don't, sir; it's 
not nine o'clock, and they havn't given it out yet." A very tolerable 
military band played outside the hotel in the evening, and I was pleased 
to see the quiet manner in which the bystanders, of all ranks, sat down 
in the chairs as they were vacant, close to the general, without any 
intrusion or any sense of impropriety arising from their difference in 
rank. 

June 22. — The expedition had not returned at four this evening 
when I started in the train for Chicago. I bade General Prentiss and 
the officers of his staff good-by, and I doubt not, if the brigade is en- 
rolled in the United States army it will do good service. At the pres- 
ent moment these officers are without pay, and they make a joke of 
their empty pockets ; but it is one of those jokes w^hich spoil by itera- 
tion. I saw more of Cairo from the windows of the carriage than it 
was my lot to behold during my stay in the place. The rail is laid on 
the levee, and I looked down on a flat land, which would become a 
swamp if Ohio and Mississippi were not kept out assiduously, dotted 
with wooden houses, a church or two, and some poor shanties, in won- 
der that people could live in it on any food but quinine. The lower 
story of the houses built along the levee must be below water level, 
and proper drainage cannot be effected. A short way outside the 
" city" there is, indeed, a veritable swamp, out of which a forest of 
dead trees wave their ghastly leafless arms. But Cairo is to be a great 
place when all the land between the two rivers is filled up, and raised 
above inundation. 

Mound City, the first station, is occupied by an outpost or small 
camp. It consists of several log-huts, some tumbling rotten wood 
hovels, and a fine growth of trees — white oak, &c. Land here is 
to be had at $10 to $25 an acre. Better land lay further on, and 
through fields and cleared ground, where the "army worm," how- 
ever — not a soldier, but an insect of that name — had been at work — 
we passed on to Jonesborough, a large village of houses and stores, 
with an " eating and drinking saloon ;" and next came to Cobden, 
named after one who is better known than the Jones who founded the 
former settlement. The name of the great political economist and re- 
former has not worked a spell upon the place, for it has more drinking 
saloons than manufactories, and the houses — vote and all — would not 
be thought much of even by a Dorsetshire peasant. The inhabitants 



142 PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 

of Cobden are to be counted by the dozen rather than by the hundred. 
It may be " great hereafter." Carbondale, still further on, is a more 
flourishing looking and larger village, and it possesses a "bank," which 
does its business in a small wooden house resplendent with the names 
of " cashier" and " president," painted on a sign-board. In spite of 
the name there is no coal here, but a large field of bituminous deposit, 
good for domestic purposes, crops out in the prairie at a nice little 
place called Dugoyne, some miles further on, and is sold at the pit's 
mouth for $1 25, or about 55. 2c?., a ton. Here, out of compliment to 
Cairo, perhaps, is a store rejoicing in the style and title of " The Com- 
mercial Emporium of Egypt," and, in keeping with the primiftive 
habits of the people, there was an announcement on the boards that 
the terms were " cash or produce." 

June 23. — A large-bodied Yorkshire man, who had a full share of 
most of the attributes of his shire folk, in the sei-vice of the land de- 
partment of the Illinois Central Railroad, gave me all the information 
necessary about the country. He was called " major" by his intimates, 
and, said he, with a wink, "Once I was a major, but, unfortunately, 
there was a w^ord before it — I was troop sergeant-major in the Queen's 
Bays." He pointed out- the fat pkces where " we put our English- 
men" when they come to settle on the prairie lands on which we were 
just entering as morning broke, and seemed hopeful of a grand future 
for the vast plains, which only stand in need of a little wood to render 
them fit for the reception of despairing agriculturists when the war 
fever is over. How pleasant it was to see white faces in the fields, to 
gaze on the waving corn, and on the martial rows of wheat-sheafs ! to 
behold the villages and the Christian spires rising in the distance ; to 
observe, as it were, under one's eyes, the growth of civilized communi- 
ties ; the village swelling into the town, and the town grasping the 
dimensions of a city. 

And how wonderful has been the work of the rail ; in a night it 
has spanned the interval between war and peace, between swamp 
and harvest-fields, between sedition and contentment. Last night 
we travelled through lines of outposts, over danger-haunted bridges, 
by camps where the soldiers watched eagerly for their supply of 
bread, and cheered lustily as it was delivered to them from the train, 
for without its aid they could get none. This morning Union flags 
floated from the little stations. Corn is abundant. The vast plains 
are rich with crops, or are ready to yield to the tilth. A city worthy 
of such a name rises above the waters of the sea-like lake whose waves 
roll from the boundless horizon in crisping foam on the smooth sandy 



PICTURES OF SOUTHERN LIFE. 143 

beach. The pure clear air invigorates the frame, weakened by the 
warm clammy breath of the South. The notes of the mocking-bird 
are heard no more, but the prairie hen gets up with a sharp whirr from 
the roadside, and drops with her brood into the deep, flowering clover ; 
the partridge calls from the stubble, and instead of the foul turkey- 
buzzard and his lazy wheels, swoops the gray falcon over the broad 
meadow in rapid curves. Chicago receives us, and comfort, cleanli- 
ness, quiet, good meat, butter and bread — of which, indeed, we had 
a foretaste at the refreshment rooms at Centralia, where I took tea 
last night — assure the traveller that he is not the inmate of a Southern 
hotel. 



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